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PRESENTED

Mpcliffe

TORONTO,

BY JOHN CHARLES SHARPE,

1911

LIBRARY

Hgdtff?

TORONTO

Shelf No

THE NICENE CREED

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS

" From the point of view of a popularizer of theology it takes a
high place. It is sympathetic in tone, sound in faith, broad in its
views without being in the least degree loose, and in addition to all
these good points it is eminently readable. On points which belong
to eschatology the author displays a wise reserve and refuses to have
an ear where Scripture has no voice." — Church Times.

"The temper and spirit in which Mr. Lias writes is excellent.
There is much in his work which will be of the highest value to
theological students." — Guardian.

"As a manual for divinity students it is a useful handbook, and
may safely be described as a recast of Pearson, and up to date."

Critical Review.

"We hope this book will be extensively used in our training
colleges." — School Guardian.

"It will be a satisfaction to English churchmen to welcome from
the pen of Mr. Lias another volume, for his previous works have not
only met with approval amongst the clergy, but have been widely
appreciated by the laity.

"There is throughout the volume an absence of controversy, but
that lends an extra chance to a thoroughly well prepared and thought
ful text-book for candidates for holy orders. The teaching and practice
of the Church of England is maintained with a largeness of mind
which will make this book of value to all schools of thought."

Pall Mall Gazette.

LONDON : SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIM.
25 HIGH STREET, BLOOMSBURY, W.C.

THE NICENE CREED

A MANUAL
use of ODanfcfoate* for

J. J. LIAS, M.A.

CHANCELLOR OF LLANDAFF CATHEDRAL,

SOMETIME VICAR OF ST. EDWARD'S, CAMBRIDGE,

HULSEAN LECTURER, AND PREACHER AT THE CHAPEL ROYAL, WHITEHALL.

AUTHOR OF "PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM,"
"THE ATONEMENT," ETC.

LONDON

SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIM.

NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
IQIO

'5V

WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR,

DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF ST. JOHN, CONSIDERED AS
EVIDENCE FOR THE DATE OF HIS GOSPEL (1875).

COMMENTARY ON 1 AND 2 CORINTHIANS,

FOR CAMBRIDGE BIBLE FOR SCHOOLS (1878-9).
THB SAME FOR CAMBRIDGE GREEK TESTAMENT
(1886, 1892).

COMMENTARY ON JUDGES,

CAMBRIDGE BIBLE FOR SCHOOLS (1882).

COMMENTARY ON JOSHUA,

PULPIT COMMENTARY (1881).

COMMENTARY ON ST. JOHN'S FIRST EPISTLE (1887).
ARE MIRACLES CREDIBLE? (1882).
THE ATONEMENT

(THE HULSEAN LECTURES FOR 1883, 1884).
PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM (1892).
MIRACLES, SPECIAL PROVIDENCE, AND PRAYER (1898).

FIRST EDITION, February, 1897
SSCONO EDITION, April, 1910

CO
SIR GEORGE STOKES, BART., LL.D., D.Sc., F.R.S.

LUCASIAN PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICATED

WITH A FEELING OF
ADMIRATION FOR HIS GREAT ATTAINMENTS

AND OF RESPECT

FOR HIS HIGH CHARACTER AND

GENUINE AND ENLIGHTENED ATTACHMENT

TO THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF

2>octrine of Cbrtet

PREFACE

TT is, perhaps, necessary that I should explain my reasons
JL for adding one more to the vast number of books which
pour forth in so continuous a stream in the present day.
Four reasons have mainly weighed with me. The first is, that
my experience as an examiner of candidates for Holy Orders
has convinced me that many of them obtain their knowledge of
the first principles of the religion which they propose to teach,
in a very unsatisfactory and haphazard way. This is partly due
to the absence, at least until lately, of satisfactory text book.^.
Few candidates attempt to read Pearson's great standard work
on the subject, and most of those who have attempted it find
him very abstruse and difficult to follow. Moreover, it must be
admitted that in a good many respects, in spite of the still
inestimable value of the work, Pearson's manner and matter
are out of date. This has been so ably pointed out by one whose
name must ever be held in reverence by Cambridge men of my
own standing, Bishop Harvey Goodwin, in his Foundations of
the Creed, that I need do no more on this point than shelter
myself under the authority of his name.1

Next, I believe that there is urgent need for a restatement of
theological truth in the light of recent scientific discovery, such
as has been attempted by Professor Allen in his Continuity of
Religious Thought, and by my friend Mr. Heard in his suggestive
volume, The Old and New Theology. The first principles of the
Christian faith remain, and we may venture to say will ever
remain, unchanged. They are above and beyond all criticism. But.
the manner in which it has been customary to explain them, and
recommend them to the hearts and consciences of mankind, will
be found to have varied considerably according to the scientific
prepossessions and current intellectual and moral conceptions of
those to whom the teachers have had to address themselves.
There never has been a greater need to bear this in mind than
at the present moment. I ventured to say as much at the
Congress at Norwich last year, and was as much surprised as
pleased to find that I had the general assent of my audience.
Moreover, as the Church has the promise of an indwelling
Spirit to instruct her in all the truth, it may well be that as
1 See his Prefatory Address to the reader.

PREFACE. yii

the ages roll on a fuller comprehension of the mysteries of
Revelation may be vouchsafed to her through the continuous
study of the inspired records in which the first principles of
that Revelation have been handed down. Was there ever an age,
I may Venture to add, in which such vast advances have been
made in and through the study of those records, as in our own ?

Thirdly, I have long been convinced that in this age, when
men are simply bewildered by the multitude of books, what
is urgently needed is a series of manuals in which the student
may master the first principles of a science before attempting to
study the larger works in which those principles are more fully
treated. More especially is this the case in theology. The
great mass of the clergy will be sufficiently furnished for their
t;isk if they have a firm grasp of first principles. "We do not
expect every clergyman to be a profound scholar, or a deep
theologian ; and if we did expect it, our expectation would
not — could not — be realized. But we have a right to expect
that he shall be thoroughly grounded in the Creed of
Christendom, as well as in the Scriptures which explain and
elucidate that Creed. Such manuals, I am aware, already
exist. Yet I may, perhaps, be acquitted of the charge of
presumption if I imagine that there is yet room for another
statement of first principles by the side of my friend Dr.
Maclear's excellent Handbook to the Creeds, Professor Mason's
Faith of the Gospel, and the late Bishop Harvey Goodwin's most
thoughtful and instructive volume on the Foundations of the
Creed, to which reference has already been made. I may add
that I have already endeavoured to supply the want of manuals
on some points of Christian theology and evidence, and I shall
make no apology for referring the readers of this book to them,
where a fuller statement of my views than I am able here to
give may seem to me to be necessary.

Lastly, I desire this book to have the character of an
Eirenicon. From my boyhood, I may be allowed to say, the
reunion of Christendom has been my dream, and it has been my
privilege to see some steps taken towards the fulfilment of that
dream, and even to take some myself. I have joined in
conference with Nonconformists at home, and with Old
Catholics, and with members of the ancient Orthodox Churches
of the East abroad. I have been admitted behind the Icono-
stasis at the celebration of the Eucharist in a Russian Church.
I have communicated, and even officiated, at Old Catholic

Viii PREFACE.

altars. If I have not joined in conference with Roman
Catholics, or communicated at their altars, it has been because
the opportunity has never been given me. One thing, however,
I have learned from my intercourse with the members of other
religious bodies. It is, that the chief obstacle to a general union
is our incapacity to draw the line between things fundamental
and things indifferent ; or, in other words, between Catholic
truth and pious opinion. And here I cannot refrain from
expressing my conviction that there is no greater obstacle
to home reunion, at least, than the loose way in which the word
" Catholic " is used, the unwise readiness to affirm of this or that
particular doctrine or practice, that the "Church has always
held " or " prescribed " it. In these pages the word " Catholic "
will be used in strict accordance with the definition of
Vincentius of Lerins. It will be applied only to such doctrines,
or practices, as can be proved to have been held, or inculcated,
"ubique, semper, et ab omnibus." If they do not satisfy this
criterion, then, however early we may meet with them, however
widely they may have been spread, they are not, strictly
speaking, Catholic. I shall say of no doctrine or practice that
" the Church has always held " or " prescribed " it, unless I find
evidence to that effect in the New Testament. If such evidence
be not found there, I must believe that the doctrine or practice
in question is no part of the Church's essential deposit of faith,
and cannot, therefore, be required of any Christian man as
requisite or necessary to salvation, or of any particular Church
as necessary to establish its claim to be regarded as part and
parcel of the Catholic Church of Christ.

I am the more anxious to place this view of the case before
my readers, as we are on the eve of a new era, in which
the Church of Christ is called upon to face new problems,
and to take, perhaps, a more prominent part than ever before in
the regeneration of human society. She will be "cabin'd,
cribb'd, confin'd," in addressing herself to this most important
task, if she is still to be bound by the rules and regulations of
the fourth, fifth, or succeeding centuries. Not even the most
careless student of history can be unaware how essentially
different were the conditions of society at the break-up of
the Roman Empire, or the dawn of modern society, from what
they are now. To encumber ourselves with the antiquated
regulations of those distant times in the conflicts of to-day were
as wise as if our soldiers were to go out to meet their enemies

PREFACE. IX

equipped with the weapons and armour used by their fore
fathers ten or fifteen centuries ago. Not that I would advise
anyone to despise the past. Not one line to that effect will
be found in these pages. But while we respect the past, we
must decline to be fettered by it. To social, moral, economical,
political, we must add ecclesiastical progress. The Eternal
Spirit has been given to the Church to enable her to adapt her
machinery to the needs of the hour, and to comprehend ever
more and more fully how the "faith once for all delivered
to the saints" can be brought to bear 011 the hearts and
consciences of mankind, so as to mould them into conformity
with the image of Christ.

In the hope that this book may be useful to others
beside those for whom it was originally designed— to such
lay members of our Church as may desire to have themselves,
and to impart to others, a clearer knowledge of the first
principles of the doctrine of Christ — I have, as a rule, translated
the passages I have cited from the Fathers. I have taken care,
however, in passages where exactness appeared to be required, to
give the original of important words and phrases.

Bishop Harvey Goodwin dedicated his volume on the
Foutidations of the Creed to Sir George Stokes. It is a satisfaction
to me, who have endeavoured in my ministrations at St.
Edward's, Cambridge, to follow the Bishop in a humble way,
and at a respectful distance, to have been able to follow him also
in this. At the same time it is necessary to add that Sir George
Stokes is not responsible for a single word in this book. He
only allows me to dedicate the book to him as a token of
his general sympathy with the theological position which I
maintained during the twelve years in which I was Vicar of
St. Edward's. During that time it was my aim, to the best
of my ability, to inculcate what I believe to be the sound,
liberal, sympathetic, and manly churchmanship I learned from
my predecessor's lips in my own undergraduate days.

Professors Bonney and Gwatkiii have kindly undertaken to
read the proof-sheets, and to them I am indebted for
many valuable suggestions. But, of course, they are not in
any way responsible for every opinion expressed in these pages.

I should add that where I have not, as I have done in
some few instances, translated my quotations from the Bible
myself, I have taken them from the Revised Version, as best
representing our present critical knowledge of the Bible.
A 2

PREFACE

TO THE SECOND EDITION

THE fact that a second edition of this work has been
called for, after twelve years, is naturally a source of
gratification to the author. He is one of those who believe
that party names and party spirit are a curse to the Church,
and that the true method of progress on theological ques
tions is for each individual to bring his own carefully
considered and honestly expressed contribution to the solu
tion of theological problems, to leave his errors to be sifted
out by fair and free discussion, and to hope that the residue
may be embodied in the edifice of truth which may be built
up out of the Sacred Scriptures by men of faith, modera
tion, and prayer. He has also, as he stated in the Preface
to the First Edition, been under the impression that the
amazing progress made in physical science since Newton's
discovery of gravitation has thrown much light on the
Being of God which was not available in earlier ages,
and will be found of much assistance in interpreting
the language of Scripture on the great doctrine which
underlies all religion whatsoever. At the time the book
was written there appeared much reason to believe that
the moment had arrived when a wider and yet simpler
theology would take the place of systems founded almost
exclusively on the traditions of a distant past, and that the
great Fathers of the Church in all past ages, while taking
their proper place in the development of theology, would be
appealed to as witnesses, guides, and counsellors, but would
no longer be regarded as infallible, or all but infallible,
authorities. This hope has been in a measure disappointed.
There seems to have been a recrudescence of party spirit
during the last twelve years ; a disposition to run into
extremes in various directions ; a love of novelty for its own

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. XI

sake; and a neglect of the independent investigator who
sees no necessity for expressing his conclusions in the
language of any particular party or school now existing. It
has therefore been a pleasant surprise to the author to find
that, slow as its sale has been, the first edition has been
gradually exhausted.

The reception of the book on all sides was much more
favourable than the author expected. In one direction only
did there appear a settled determination to discredit his
work. In a certain theological Quarterly an article appeared
the object of which was to show that he was " insufficiently
equipped for the task he had undertaken." This end was
thought to have been attained by stringing together a
number of minute mistakes which could scarcely be avoided
in a book ranging over so wide an area ; by misrepresenting
or misunderstanding its language, and then professing to
correct errors into which the author had never fallen ; and
by evoking the odium theologicum against statements which
ran counter to the opinions of the writer of the article.
His object was clearly to create a prejudice against the book
because it was felt to be calculated to hinder the predomin
ance among us of the school of theology to which the writer
of the article belonged. It has seemed to the author that
he will hardly be just to himself if, when bringing out a
new edition, he passes over the article in question sub
silentio.

The string of accusations is so long that it will be im
possible to go into them all. But they appear to have
emanated from a critic of a very common type in these days
— one who has accumulated a vast number of minute
details which he has found himself unable to digest or to
co-ordinate. Of the first class of accusations is the com
plaint that the author has described the decision of the
Nicene Creed as unanimous, whereas two Bishops dissented
from it. There is on this point a further complaint that
" a just idea " of the discussions which preceded the decision
is not given. In answer to this second complaint it may
be sufficient to say that the author was not pretending to
write a history of the Nicene Council, and that his sole
object was to explain the way in which its decisions were
arrived at. With regard to the unanimity of the Council, it

Xii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

may be remarked that the names of the two dissentients,
Theonas and Marmaricus, are noted in the author's copy of
Socrates. If he has permitted himself to ignore them, it is
on the principle well known to mathematicians that infini
tesimal quantities may be neglected when endeavouring to
arrive at a practical result. And he has with him on this
point the historian Socrates himself, from whom author and
critic have alike drawn their information. For Socrates,
while mentioning the names of the two dissentients, not only
(Book I., chap, ix.) says that the decision of the Council
was unanimous, but he quotes the Emperor Constantino
and Eusebius of Caesarea, who were present, as saying the
same thing. The author is quite content to have erred — if
indeed he have erred in passing over two utterly insignificant
units — in such excellent company. Then, again, he has been
accused of making a distinction between Patripassianism
and Sabellianism. The former, we are told, "is simply a
Western name for the latter." Here, again, the author, if
he errs, errs in very good company. For competent Church
historians, such as JSTeander and Gieseler, distinguish between
Sabellians and Patripassians. And the former quotes a
Latin fragment of Origen, in which that great Father says
that those were called Patripassians in Latin, who held that
there was but one Person in the Trinity. Apparently my
critic has never heard of Theodotus and Artemon, Praxeas
and Noetus. Once more, the author is accused of saying
that Cyril of Alexandria went further than any other Greek
Father in the direction of the Double Procession of the
Holy Spirit, and Athanasius, Basil, and Epiphanius are cited
in contradiction to this observation, and also a translation
of one of Athanasius' treatises " which," as the critic him
self admits, "may have been amplified," beside another
which is not his at all, and the author and date of which are
unknown ! The references to Athanasius himself refer to the
consubstantialit if of the Spirit with the Father and the Son,
and have no relevance whatever to His Procession (in the
strict sense of the word procedere). The same may be said
of Basil. He speaks in clear terms of the Divinity of the
Holy Spirit, and adds that the Spirit is " manifested through
(Sia) the Son," and is "His Mind." Thus the reviewer
seems to have been more anxious to make out a case

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. Xlll

for himself than to be fair to the author he has placed on
his dissecting-table. He might have made out a better case
still had he cited Gregory of Nazianzus, who (De Ador. in
Spir. et Verit^ xii.) says that the Spirit "hath remained
in Christ, although He is in Him according to Nature."
He, too (Comm. in Joan., xiv. 27), calls the Spirit the
" Spirit and Mind of Christ." And on chapter xv. 26, 27
he says that the Spirit is by nature the proper Spirit of the
Son existing in Him and yoiny forth from Him. But even
this would hardly prove the reviewer's case. He was bound,
not simply to put down references at the bottom of his page,
which no one was likely to verify, but to prove that those
references contained stronger language on the point than
that which is found in Cyril of Alexandria.

The reviewer has also misrepresented the language of the
book on various points, and has proceeded to refute, not
what the author has said, but what he is incorrectly
described as having said. On these grounds he charges
the author with "confusion of thought." The "confusion
of thought " is his own. It was not contended, for instance,
in regard to the Fall, that there was any "necessity" im
posed upon man that he should sin and bequeath the
"defect and taint of original sin" to his descendants. It
is never stated that primitive man " could not help "
sinning. The reviewer lives in the atmosphere of mediaeval
speculation and logic, and has apparently not the slightest
idea of modern scientific induction. Given a power to any
being, or aggregate of beings, to transgress the law of that
being, the author contended, and it becomes a moral
certainty that, at some time or other, they will transgress
it. And he goes on to remark that as such transgression
was morally certain from the first, God is described as
having prepared a way of dealing with it "before the
foundation of the world." Then the author has been
accused of attributing to the late Professor Milligan and
to the Bishop of Birmingham phrases which were used
before their time. This is an entirely gratuitous accusa
tion. The names of those two divines were simply
mentioned to show that they accepted these expressions
at the present day. Then we are told that "a clear
thinker, with adequate theological and historical know-

XIV PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

ledge, ought not to accept Mr. Matthew Arnold's phrase
'a kind of magnified and non-natural Roman Emperor'
as a 'felicitous3 description of the mediaeval and modern
Western way of regarding God." The author has not the
slightest intention of withdrawing that language. From
the days when the damnation of unbaptized infants was
taught, to the days of the hard predestinarianism which
has hardly ceased to exist even yet, this conception of
God has been widely prevalent in His Church, and until
it is finally exorcised a considerable number of thinking
men will continue to tolerate Christianity without em
bracing it.

I pass on to direct accusations of heterodoxy. I frankly
confess that I never expected to satisfy a reviewer of the
school to which my critic belongs on the Sacraments, on
the Episcopate, on the Authority of Scripture and the
Church respectively, on the powers of the priesthood,
especially in Absolution. On these points it is worthy
of notice that the reviewer very wisely does not attempt
refutation, but takes refuge in affirmation instead. One
specimen of his way of dealing with these subjects will
be sufficient to show the intelligent reader whether or no
he will find in his criticism the " clearness of thought and
power of interpretation" which, as the reviewer rightly
remarks, are essential in dealing with such subjects. The
book states that the gift of Divine Life in and through
Baptism is potential only, until it is grasped and made
his own by the Christian through the power of faith. This
statement, according to the critic, is "particularly objection
able." "The gift of regeneration," he continues, "the
sacramental union with the Humanity of Christ ... is
absolutely bestowed on the soul in the Sacrament. . . .
Nothing can make the person who has received them cease
to be a member of Christ." Therefore, it is to be supposed,
the vows of repentance, faith, and obedience, made for the
infant at Baptism, and renewed personally at Confirmation,
are useless forms. The late Mr. Spurgeon's conception
of the teaching of the Church of England is an accurate
one, if this indeed be her teaching. All we have to do
is to catch unconscious infants, and baptize them, and
they remain "in union with the Humanity of Christ"

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. XV

for evermore. Such a naked and unashamed assertion
of the opus operatum is surprising from an Anglican divine
of any school at the present moment. However "objec-
tionahle " the assertion of the " potentiality " of sacramental
gifts may be to the reviewer, the author has not removed
it, and cannot consent to remove it, from his volume.
The reviewer is also "gravely dissatisfied with the treat
ment of certain terms sometimes used as descriptions of
God," and thinks that what was needed was not "the
mere rejection of the terms 'the Absolute,' 'the Infinite,'
'the Unconditioned,' but an explanation in what senses
they are true, and in what senses they are untrue." The
reviewer has not taken the trouble to read the passage
with which he is so "gravely dissatisfied." For it is
distinctly asserted in it that the terms rejected are so
rejected "because God is no metaphysical abstraction, but'
a Living Being, an Active Force, an Unceasing Energy"
(p. 52). And the three next sentences, as the reader
may see for himself, " explain in what sense " these words
"are untrue," though it is perfectly true that there is
no explanation "in what senses they are true," because
the author goes on to point out that the God of the
Bible is not a metaphysical abstraction, nor all the ab
stractions of metaphysicians put together, but the Living-
Source of all "Love, Goodness, Justice, Wisdom, and
Truth" (p. 53).

With these words I may safely leave my critic to the
judgment of any fair-minded man. I proceed to two
criticisms of a different type. The first came from the
lips of the honoured friend to whom my first edition was
by permission dedicated. He thought I had dwelt at too
great length on the Being of God. My defence is that
I have had reason to believe that inadequate conceptions
of God are prevalent even yet, even among sincere and
on the whole orthodox believers, and are the source of the
many shortcomings which still pervade our religious teach
ing, and cause much perplexity to thoughtful minds.1 The
second was in a Wesleyan publication, and it complained

1 I may be allowed to refer to a paper read by me before the
Victoria Institute in 1903 on this subject. The subsequent dis
cussion is extremely illuminating.

XVi PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

that my treatment of Eschatology was very inadequate.
There is no doubt that this criticism is a just one. But
my defence must be that, so far, the discussion of the
subject has been very inadequate also. And in writing
a Manual for Candidates for Holy Orders I considered
that an exhaustive discussion of the subject would be out
of place. I therefore was content to touch on a few
material points, and to indicate where more information
might be found, if needed.

Since the publication of the first edition I have not
met with any work of serious importance on the question
with which my book deals. But the works of two
writers on Biblical Criticism are worthy of notice, in
view of the recrudescence in this country of a criticism
destructive of the authority of the writers of the New
Testament in general and of the Four Gospels in par
ticular, and of its acceptance by theological Professors in our
Universities, and its consequent introduction into the pulpits
of the National Church. The first of these writers is Pro
fessor Kamsay, who went out to Asia Minor, as he tells us,
convinced that the Acts of the Apostles was a rechau/e
of the writings of six writers imperfectly acquainted with
their subject, and came back, after diligently following
up St. Paul's missionary journeys, with a strong belief
that the Acts was the work of St. Luke, and of St. Luke
alone, and that St. Luke was perhaps the most accurate
historian that ever lived. The second is the monumental
work of the learned Dr. Zahn, on the Canon of Scripture,
who adds to the "saner" and more constructive Biblical
criticism for which, some years back, Professor James
Robertson pleaded, and which has generally been believed
to be a special characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon mind, the
habit of minute investigation, and the widest acquaintance
with what other men have said and thought on the same
subject. Dr. Zahn, in spite of the disintegrating theories
which have been so widely spread among ourselves of late,
has emphatically associated himself with that "tradition"
in regard to the New Testament Canon, the acceptance of
which, although it has been handed down from almost
the earliest — as far as the Gospels are concerned from the
very earliest — times in the Christian Church, has come,

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. XV11

among men of learning and credit among us, to be regarded
as identified with lack of intellect and scholarship, and as a
mark of weak and indiscriminating credulity, or of the
otiose acceptance of ancient testimony. As no religion can
continue to exist which is founded on doubtful credentials,
and as many of the weaker minds of our time seem to
need to be supported, not only by ancient tradition but by
modern authority, it is well to be able to point to two men
in the present generation who have extorted respect and
admiration even from their adversaries by their ability and
erudition, and who have emphatically endorsed the universal
belief of the Christian Church in the genuineness and
authenticity of the New Testament Canon as it has been
handed down to us. I may be allowed to deplore what
appears to me to be the utterly unscientific way in which
hypotheses and guesses are placed before the public as
ascertained results without the full and free discussion from
every point of view which would alone justify their being
so regarded.

One or two explanatory remarks may fitly be added here.
The use of italics has gradually declined among us, and
very properly so, from one point of view. But the habit
of cursory and inattentive reading is, I am sorry to believe,
very much on the increase just now. As I am writing
chiefly for young students, I have thought it necessary in
this edition to make considerably more use of italics than
in the former one. I have placed some of the more im
portant of the short additions to this edition in brackets.
I have thought it better to leave text and notes as they
were in the first edition in reference to the authors
quoted. By "the Bishop of Durham," be it therefore
understood, Dr. "VVestcott is meant. " Dr. Gibson " is now
Bishop of Gloucester. "Canon Gore" has become Bishop
of Birmingham. "Dr. Moule " is now Bishop of Durham.
"The Rev. T. B. Strong" is Dean of Christ Church,
Oxford. And "Father Benson" is the well-known and
respected founder of the Order of Cowley Fathers, not the
— at this time — equally well-known member of another
communion.

I should like further to add that the very numerous and
carefully selected references to Scripture were intended not

XV111 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

for ornament but for use. They will be largely increased
by the careful use of a Reference Bible. The young student
who carefully looks them out will, I hope and believe, find
that if he become familiar with them, he has a grasp of
Scripture which will preserve him from the slip-shod preach
ing too characteristic of every age of the Church, and
certainly by no means out of fashion in our own. The
book, once more, is primarily intended "for the clergy. But
it may not be useless to the intelligent layman. And it
may not be lacking in modesty to remark with Bishop
Pearson that the text of the volume may be useful to those
who find the notes a little bit beyond them. Lastly, I must
regretfully confess that " an Eirenicon " is as much, or more,
needed than it was in 1897, and that my desire has been,
with Vincentius Lirinensis in the fifth century, to maintain
that no vieics can be anything more than private opinions
which cannot claim to be supported by the three great
principles of ANTIQUITY, UNIVERSALITY, AND GENERAL CON
SENT. I cannot be too thankful that, in old age and enforced
retirement, I have had the opportunity once more of lifting
up my voice on behalf of breadth of view and freedom of
expression in non-essentials, combined with unswerving
fidelity to the Foundations of the Faith.

J. J. LIAS.
HAYWARD'S HEATH,
Jan. 3, 1910.

It should be added that the book is reprinted in the main
from the old stereotyped plates, and that therefore no very
sweeping changes, however desirable, were possible.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGR

INTRODUCTION . . ... 1

I. THE POSITION OF FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEMK . 15

II. THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF IN GOD . 41

III. THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF GOD

Sec. i. "I Believe in One God " . . 80

Sec. ii. "The Father" . . . 102

Sec. iii. "Almighty" . . . 104

Sec. iv. " Maker of Heaven and Earth," etc. . 107

IV. THE REVELATION OF GOD IN THE PERSON OF JESUS

CHRIST

Sec. i. " And in one Lord Jesus Christ " . . 113

Sec. ii. "The Only Begotten Son of God," etc. . 121

Sec. iii. " God of God, Light of Light," etc. . 123
V. THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST

Sec. i. " Who for us Men and for our Salva
tion," etc. . . . 140
Sec. ii. " And was Crucified," etc. . . .182
Appendix. " He Descended into Hell " 218
Sec. iii. "And the Third Day He Rose again," etc. 223
Sec. iv. "And Ascended into Heaven," etc. . 233
Sec. v. " And He shall Come again," etc. . . 243
VI. THE HOLY SPIRIT . . . . 252
VII. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH . . . 280
Sec. i. On the Church of Christ . . 280
Sec. ii. On the Sacraments of the Church . . 301
Note. On the Doctrine of the Real

Presence . ... 332

Sec. iii. On Ministers in the Church . . 344

Sec. ir. On the Authority of the Church . . 379
xix

XX CONTENTS.

PAGB

VIII. THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD, AND THB LIFE

OF THE WORLD TO COME . . . 407

NOTE A. On Hypostasis and Substance . , . 428

NOTE B. On the Kenosis . . . 430

INDEX . 433

THE CREED

INTRODUCTION

OSITION OF CREEDS IN THE CHURCH
SYSTEM

1 importance of Creeds in the system of the Universal
tiurch depends upon two considerations. The first

position of faith in the economy of salvation; the
. is the necessity, in an organised society, that each
3r of that society should give his adhesion to the

the society was established to maintain and propagate,
rst will be discussed in the following chapter. The
[ may very reasonably be taken for granted. But it is
ble, before proceeding further, that a brief historical
it should be given of the actual place of Creeds in
stem, of the Church.

) Creed was originally, there can be little doubt,'
pansion of the Baptismal formula.1 Each person, on
her entrance into the Christian Church, was expected
ke a profession of faith in the Existence and Nature of
eing with Whom he or she entered into union, and in

It would seem that the origin of the Creed was a baptismal
a, corresponding to the commission of Christ, namely this :
ve in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost. The
es* Creed should he regarded primarily as the expansion and
tion of this formula." Bishop H. GOODWIN, Foundations of
zed, preface, p. 13.

2 THE CREED.

certain results of that Being's working in the corporate
society and in the individual spirit.1 This formula
originally, no doubt, took the interrogative form. But
gradually, as different Churches developed their various
forms of worship, the recitation of the Creed formed an
important part of Divine Service. At first — so entirely did
the early Christians subordinate the letter to the spirit —
there was no particular form of Creed whatever handed
down in the Church at large, but each Church cast its
interrogations at Baptism, and its declaration of principles
in public worship, in such form as seemed desirable. And
yet, so firm was the adherence of each particular Church to
the great verities of the faith of Christ, that no substantial
difference exists between any of the numerous forms of
Creed which have come down to us.

We can see plainly enough from the summaries of the
faith given us by St. Paul,2 by Ignatius,3 and by Irenaeus,4
that it was "one faith" which the Church handed down at
the "one baptism."5 Tertullian, however, who gives
(circa 200 A.D.) a similar outline of the principles of the
Christian belief, makes some very definite statements in
connection with it, on the position the Creed holds in the
Christian system. In his opinion, the Creed is a necessary
guide to the understanding of books written for our in
struction by inspired men. The heretics, by their rejection
of this guide, or Rule of Faith, as he calls it, have entirely

1 LUMBY, History of the Creeds, p. 5. See also SWETE, Apostles'
Creed, p. 10, and BURBIDGE, Liturgies and Offices of the Church,
p. 316. In the latter book much interesting information will be
found concerning the Liturgical use of the Creeds.

2 1 Cor. xv. 1-4. 3 Ep. to TralHans, c. ix.

4 Against Heresies, I. x. 1.

5 Eph. iv. 5. The various summaries of the faith will be found in
LUMBY, History of the Creeds. It is not our purpose to do more than
give a very brief outline of that history.

INTRODUCTION. 3

misapprehended the drift of Holy Scripture.1 In fact, he
continues, all discussion on the meaning of the Scriptures
is time wasted, unless the faith taught by Christ and His
Apostles, and universally received throughout the Christian
Church, be first of all accepted. Tertullian's disciple
Cyprian, writing about half a century later, refers to the
symbolwn, or creed, in such terms as to prove its virtual
identity with the Creed we now profess. This Creed has
come down to us in two forms. The first, or Nicene
Creed, is used in the Communion Office of every orthodox
and fully-orga:aizeAjC!mj£kJjn^ The second

and simpler form, called the Apostles' Creed, is not used
in the East, but throughout the West is the profession
of faith required of the candidate Jor JBaptism, and is
also used in the minor offices of the Church.

We will deal first with the form of Creed which has
obtained universal acceptance. But we must first of all re
mark, that though usually termed the Nicene Creed, because
supposed to have been adopted at the First Oecumenical
Council at Nicaea, A.D. 325, it is not the formula drawn up
at the Nicene Council, Nor can we be sure that it is even,
as is generally supposed, the form of Creed adopted at the
Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381. 2 It is true that it
is stated to have been such by the members of the Fourth
General Council at Qhalcedon. But even the sentence of the
Fathers of that Council, whatever its authority on a question
of doctrine, cannot be supposed to bind us on a question
of fact. We will place the two Creeds side by side, and
it will then be seen on what points they correspond, and on
what they differ.3 It may be observed in passing, that in

1 On Prescription as against Heretics, c. xii.-xix.

3 At least this is the conclusion of Professor HORT, in his now
famous Dissertation.

3 The clauses in each which do not correspond to those in the
other are placed in italics.

THE CREED.

the original Creed the profession of faith is in the plural,
while in our modern version it is in the singular.

NICENE CREED.

CREED
AS AFFIRMED AT CHALCEDON

We believe in (ei's) One We believe in One God the

God the Father Almighty Father Almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth,
and of all things visible
and invisible :

And in one Lord Jesus
Christ,

The only-begotten Son of God,

Of ?11 things visible and in
visible the Maker :

Arid in (et's) One Lord Jesus

Christ,

The Son of God,
Only-begotten One, begotten

from the Father (that is,

from the Essence of the

Father),

God of ((K) God,
Light of (!K) Light,
Very (aA^tvos)1 God of (lie)

Very God,
Begotten, not made,
Of one Essence2 with the

Father ;
By Whom all things were

made,
Both the things in the heaven

and the things in the earth,
Who for us men, and for

our salvation came down,

Light of Light,

Very God of Very God,

Begotten, not made,

Of one Essence with the

Father ;
By Whom all things were

made,

Who for us men, and for
our salvation came down
from the heavens,

1 i.e., true or genuine,

2 Or, as we usually now say, Substance.

INTRODUCTION.

And was incarnate (or was
made flesh),

And was made (or became)
Man,

Suffered,

And rose again the third day,

Ascended into the heavens,

Coming to judge the living
and the dead :

And in (as) the Holy Ghost.

And was incarnate by (!K)
the Holy Ghost and Mary
the Virgin,

And was made Man,

And tvas crucified for us

under Pontius Pilate.
And suffered and ivas buried,
And rose again the third day

according to the Scripture?,
And ascended into the

heavens.
And coming again with glory

to judge living and dead :
Wlwse kingdom shall have no

end.
And in the Holy Ghost.1

The Nicene formulary stops at this point. The rest of
the Creed we now use was added on some other occasion.
The variations from the Nicene Creed also received sanction
on that occasion. What was that occasion 1 Dr. Hort has
contended in his Dissertation on the subject (1) that no
alternative Creed can be shown to have been propounded at
Constantinople, and yet, as we have seen, (2) variations
more or less important have been introduced into the
symbol now universally adopted in the Church. The
occasion was evidently the Council of Chalcedon. It is
clear that both Creeds were recited and formally accepted
at that Council, but that the Fathers then gathered together

1 I have given the two forms of Creed in English for the benefit of
those whose knowledge of the learned languages is not great, and
I have occasionally taken the liberty of varying the translation. It
will be observed that the words " God of God " have now been added
to the Creed propounded at Chalcedon.

6 THE CREED.

were probably in error in supposing the alternative form of
Creed to have been adopted at Constantinople. Whence,
then, is our present Creed derived 1 Dr. Hort contends, and
with great reason, that it was the ancient Creed of the
Church of Jerusalem, regarded up to that time with the
utmost reverence as "the Mother of all Churches," with
such modifications as should display its substantial identity
with the Nicene symbol. Eusebius of Caesarea produced
a Creed at Nicaea which bears a close resemblance to it,
but, of course, without the crucial phrase Homoousion.1
Caesarea, we know, was in Palestine. And as we meet
in the Catechetical Lectures of Cyril, who was Bishop of
Jerusalem toward the latter end of the fourth century, with
a Creed very closely related to the Creed adopted at
Chalcedon, only once more without the Homoousion, Dr.
Hort comes to the conclusion that the Church of Jerusalem
modified its Creed in conformity with the Nicene definitions,
and that, its orthodoxy being thus indisputable, the Creed
recited at Jerusalem became the form of Creed recited at
all the altars of the Christian Church throughout the world.2
If we ask what authority it has, we must reply, that of
the Fourth Oecumenical Council, coupled with its universal
acceptance by every Church possessing anything like a
Liturgy, down to the present time.3

1 For the meaning of tins phrase see below, p. 127.

2 See HORT, Two Dissertations, pp. 107, 108. We cannot, of course,
be quite certain of the correctness of Professor Hort's conclusion in his
Dissertation. It depends chiefly on the argument e silentio. But the
Fathers at Chalcedon may have been in possession of information
which has not come down to us. The articles which follow the
confession of belief in the Holy Ghost, though substantially, are by no
means verbally identical in the Creed of Cyril, and that recited at
Chalcedon.

3 For the introduction in the West of the Filioque clause see below,
chap. vi.

INTRODUCTION. 7

The Apostles' Creed, as it is called, which is universally
accepted in the West, but is regarded, perhaps, with some
suspicion in the East as not stating with sufficient clearness
the essential doctrines of the Faith, is that which the
Western Church recites in her daily offices, and requires
of all candidates for Baptism. The earliest version of it
in a form approaching to that in which it is found in our
own formularies, is in the writings of Euffinus, a presbyter
of the Church of Aquileia in North Italy, circa 400 A.D.
He refers to the fact that the Creed in use at Rome differs
from that in use at Aquileia in some minor points, more
especially in the omission by the Roman Church of the
article relating to the Descent into Hades.1 He states
that this article was also wanting in the Eastern Creeds.
This statement is supported by the fact that neither the
Nicene nor the Chalcedon Creed contains it. Moreover,
Marcellus of Ancyra, when exculpating himself at Rome
from the charge of Sabellianism about A.D. 340, produced
a Creed almost precisely agreeing with the Apostles' Creed,
as we have it, but without the clause referring to the
Descent into Hades.2 The article of the Descent into
Hades is found in the Commentary of Venantius Fortunatus,
A.D. 570; but it is not until the time of Pirminius, A.D. 750,
that the Apostles' Creed reaches its present form.

The Creed, or rather Hymn, commonly called the
Atlianasian Creed, is of later origin. It originated in the
West, and though found in some copies of Greek Liturgies,
has never been formally received in the East. The positive
way in which it asserts the Procession of the Spirit from the
Son as well as from the Father, would naturally predispose
the East to look on it with little favour, even when the
assertion of that doctrine was expunged from the Greek

1 In his work on the Creed.

2 So Epiphanius states in his work on Heresies, c. Ixxii.

8 THE CREED.

versions of it. For many years Waterland's theory, that
it was written by Hilary of Aries, who died A.D. 449, was
accepted by most authorities in the Church of England.
But within the last thirty years a determined attempt has
been made to put an end to its public recitation in the
Church, in consequence of the extraordinary force and
stringency of what are known as its " damnatory clauses,"
and the consequence has been a re-opening of the whole
question of its date and authorship. It is quite clear that
Waterland's arguments, in regard to its date, cannot be
regarded as conclusive,1 and that 'in regard to Hilary's
authorship, there is absolutely no direct evidence whatever.
It is simply a question of probability and inference; and in
a question of this kind probability and inference do not go
very far. More recent researches, however, claim to have
established the following positions : (1) The Creed originated
in Spain, where for many centuries there was a vigorous
theological life, and where the Catholic Church was brought
into sharp collision with the Arianism of the Goths. (2)
The Creed was clearly unknown to Charlemagne at the
Council of Frankfort, A.D. 794 ; for had a Creed, so suited
to his purpose, been known to be in existence at the date of
that Council, he would hardly have failed to make use of it
to support the views which he was then so energetically
pressing on the Church. In fact, two years later, at Friuli,
the learned Bishop Paulinus laments the absence of such a
symbol as would decide the grave questions the Council had
met to discuss.2 Portions of the Athanasian Creed were no

1 e.g., he says that it was written before the Nestorian and
Eutychian controversies disturbed the Church. But there is quite
sufficient allusion to them in the words, "Not by confusion of
Substance, but by unity of Person."

3 The Council met to oppose the errors of Elipandus and Felix of
Urgellis, who taught that Christ was the adopted Son of God.

INTRODUCTION. 9

doubt in existence at an earlier period, and the whole Creed
may possibly have been put together some time before it
became generally known ; but we have no definite evidence
of its existence as a whole until the first quarter of the
ninth century after Christ.1 The authority of this Creed
must, therefore, be considered as inferior to that of the
others. Yet there is no doubt that its propositions are, in
general, an accurate statement of the faith handed down in
the Christian Church.2

The animus imponentis is an important question to con
sider when dealing with the public recitation of this Creed.
It has differed very widely at different times of the
Church's history. In the ninth century A.D., no doubt the
fiercest opinions in regard to the fate in store for all who
did not accept the definitions put forth by authority were
generally prevalent, and continued to prevail until the
Reformation. But until the Reformation the ordinary
offices of the Church, into which the Athanasian Creed
had been introduced, were practically private, and not
congregational. At the Reformation a change took place.

1 I have made no attempt at an independent investigation of the
history of the Creeds. I have simply abridged, for the benefit of
the student, the accounts found in LUMBY, History of the Creed;
BURBIDGE, Liturgies and Offices of the Church ; and SWETE, Apostles'
Creed. Further information will be found in these works, in KING'S
History of the Apostles' Creed, and in HARVEY'S Three Creeds. My
object is to treat not of the history of the Creed, but of the Creed
itself.

2 Since the above was written, one of the Texts and Studies,
edited by Professor Robinson, has appeared, having for its subject the
Athanasian Creed. The author, the Rev. A. E. Burn, has once more
discussed the evidence, and believes it to point to the Creed having
been composed by Honoratus of Aries, who died in A.D. 429. But
though he has proved that the Creed was in existence at an earlier
period than that mentioned in the text, its existence at as early a time
as that to which Mr. Burn has assigned it depends on arguments
which are by no means conclusive.

10 THE CREED.

The services which until that time had been recited in Latin,
either by the priest himself, or by monastic communities,
were then translated and adapted for the use of congrega
tions. In 1549, the public use of the Athanasian Creed
was confined to the greater festivals. In 1552, it was
directed to be said about once a month. There can be
little doubt that this public recitation of the Creed, with
its strong denunciations against those who would deny
the faith, was intended as a practical answer to those
who charged the Reformers with desiring to abandon
the Faith of Christendom. How far the damnatory
clauses were at that time pressed in their strictest
literal sense, we have no evidence to show ; but it is
perfectly clear that the wider spirit of tolerance which
we owe to the Reformation movement, soon began to pro
duce a considerable modification in the views with which
those clauses were regarded, even by those who were most
unwilling to abandon them. It is unfortunate that in the
English language the expressions are stronger than in the
original ; but even in the original they are strong enough,
and have elicited the disapproval of the more tolerant, yet
not always latitudinarian, school in the Church of England.
Bishop Jeremy Taylor does not defend them. The com
missioners of 1689, who were instructed to endeavour to
broaden the basis of the Church of England, desired to
apply the language of the Creed "only to those who
obstinately deny the substance of the Christian faith."
And in 1873, the Convocation of the Province of Canter
bury declared that in the warnings in this Confession of
Eaith, "the Church doth not herein pronounce judgment
on any particular person or persons, God alone being the
Judge of all."1 The question whether it be wise to force

1 Damnatory clauses of the Athanasian Creed, STANLEY, Life, i. 233.
"Their obvious meaning, and that which was affixed to them at the

INTRODUCTION. 1 1

the recitation of these clauses upon those who have received
no special training to enable them to understand their
limitations, most certainly admits of discussion. But on
the other hand, both Scripture and the Church have always
insisted that belief in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is, in
all cases, necessary to salvation. In what this belief con
sists, in any particular case ; under what circumstances,
that is, a man may be regarded as implicitly believing what
he may hesitate explicitly to confess; these are questions
which we have no authority to decide. But the Church
cannot shrink from proclaiming what may be regarded as
the Charter of her Existence, that there is "no other
Name" but that of Jesus Christ in which salvation can
be found.1

Hence the demand for acceptance of the Christian Creed,
in one shape or other, from each candidate for admission
into the Christian Church. Hence, also, the public recita
tion of the Creed at the celebration of Holy Communion,
and at the other public services of the Church. It is not
left optional to the Christian whether he will profess the
faith of Christ or not. It is obligatory on him to believe

time of the general reception of the Creed into the Church, and of its
reception into the Reformed Church of England, seems to be that
every individual who denies any of the statements therein contained
will perish everlastingly." . . . But after a catena of Anglican
divines of high authority, he subjoins: "Hence it seems clear that
the strict and obvious interpretation is not the one required.
Perhaps the interpretation which could best accord with the original
words, and with these several Anglican authorities, would be to
understand them as affirming that, though every error concerning
the nature of God or man may be in itself harmless, yet, if fully
carried out into all its logical and moral consequences, it will end in
the subversion of the Christian faith in him who holds it." I should
myself prefer, instead of "may be in itself harmless," to say "may
not in every individual case do all the harm which the denial of
important truths is calculated to do."
1 Acts iv. 12.

12 THE CREED.

what Christ has revealed to us concerning the Nature of
God, and the character of His dealings with the world. And
"he that belie veth not shall be condemned,"1 nay, "is con
demned " (or rather judged) " already, because he hath not
believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."2

Lastly, we must briefly touch on the relation of the Creed
to Holy Scripture, and to the evolution of doctrine. The
relation of Scripture and the Creed is one of inter
dependence. We cannot understand Scripture except in
connection with the summary of its chief doctrines, handed
down in the Christian Creeds.3 On the other hand, we
cannot apply the truths of the Creed to our daily needs,
without the exposition of them, given to the Church by men
authorized and inspired by Christ Himself to breathe life
and power into the first principles of the faith. The attempt
on the part of each man to construct a system of doctrine for
himself out of the Scriptures, has been fruitful of failure, of
error, of discord, of division.4 The Creed, we should remem-
ber, existed, in something like its present shape, before the
New Testament. Men knew in Whom they had believed5
before a line of the New Testament was written. And
they continued to know it when copies of the Scriptures
were scarce, or unattainable. There was, and is, a "faith
once for all delivered to the saints."6 The Church knows

1 Mark xvi. 16 ; see also Matt. xii. 31, 32 ; John vi. 40, 53.

3 John iii. 18. "A declaration of personal trust and allegiance is,
in reality, a high form of worship ; to recite a Creed is no barren and
dry test of orthodoxy ; it is a loving outburst of a loyal heart." —
Bishop HARVEY GOODWIN, Foundations of the Creed, p. 11.

3 " Understandest thou what thou readest ? " " How can I, except
some one shall guide me ? " (Acts viii. 31.)

4 In the Life of Professor Maurice (vol. i pp. 3. 4), we find an
interesting account of the way in which the English Presbyterian
co regations of th last century, without one exception, lapsed into
Unitarianism after they had decided not to make the Creed, but the
Scriptures, the basis of their teaching.

5 2 Tim. i. 12. 6 Jude 3.

INTRODUCTION. 1 3

nothing of " undenominational " teaching. Her faith is
positive, not negative ; definite, not capable of being varied
to suit the tastes of the hour. From the first, her mission
has been the energetic and unflinching proclamation of
certain fundamental verities. All the "promises of God,"
how many soever they be, have in " Him the yea," and in
" Him. the Amen," " to the glory of God through us," says
St. Paul.1 The Christian Creed, by which, it should be
explained, is meant the fundamental doctrines, or rather
facts, to which all three Creeds bear testimony, was not,
as some pretend, a gradual development of attachment to a
great and good teacher, until it became an apotheosis.2 Nor
was it the arrival at a colourless residuum by a process of
mutual exclusion on the part of opposite schools of thought.
It was the deposit of truth committed to the Church from the
first.3 That deposit, with such explanations and limitations
as may serve to preserve it in its integrity, is, it is true, all
that the Church has a right to impose upon her members.
On the other hand, no one has a right to consider himself a
member of the Christian Church who refuses, or even
neglects, to accept it.4

1 2 Cor. i. 20. I may perhaps be allowed to add here the note
on the passage in my Commentary in the Cambridge Bible for Schools.
"Whatever promises God lias given are given through Jesus Christ.
He is the eternal affirmation of Divine love. Whatever His servants
do, they can but minister Him, and the unchanging will and purpose
He has come to reveal."

2 Professor Harnack has, of late, expounded this theory with great
ingenuity and plausibility. For a reply see Professor Swete's lectures
on "The Apostles' Creed."

3 Canon Bright, speaking in Convocation on February 13th, 1896,
speaking as an old pupil of Dr. Arnold, said, "Whatever else Dr.

Arnold failed to see, he believed in the Incarnation He

believed in Christ — God and Man— with an energy and fervour and
life and grasp which pervaded his whole work, and made him, as an
ethical teacher, a most striking instance of the interdependence of
faith and morals."

4 See this question further discussed pp. 29-30.

CHAPTER I.

THE POSITION OF FAITH IN THE
CHRISTIAN SCHEME

"i BELIEVE"

THE root-principle of the life of the regenerate Christian
is the Life of his Master, Christ. As we shall here
after see, the Christian Church, from the beginning, has
taught that Christ came to "give" Himself "for the life of
the world." This truth is expressed in various ways in Scrip
ture. " The free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ
our Lord."1 "This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only
true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent."2
" God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
He that hath the Son hath the life, and he that hath not
the Son of God, hath not the life."3 But there is a certain
condition necessary, on man's part, for the reception of
this Divine gift. This necessary condition is faith.
"These things have I written unto you, that ye may
know that ye have eternal life, even unto you that believe
on the name of the Son of God."4 Accordingly, faith
occupies a position of supreme importance in the Christian
scheme.

1 Rom. vi. 23.

2 John xvii. 3. tva. seems here, as in modern Greek, to stand for
the ordinary infinitive. See also John i. 12.

8 1 John v. 11, 12. 4 1 John v. 13.

16 THE CREED.

Faitli in (or upon) Christ, believing in (or upon) Christ, are
repeatedly declared, both by Jesus Christ Himself and those
sent by Him, to be the condition of membership in the Chris
tian Church, the necessary source of all Christian obedience
and progress. It formed the ground of acceptance of the
saints of the Old Covenant. Abraham "believed Jehovah,
and He counted it to him for righteousness."1 And from his
time to that of Christ " they which be of faith are blessed
with the faithful Abraham."2 "The just," as Habakkuk
declares, was to " live by his faith."3 Faith in Christ was
laid down from the beginning as necessary to him who
would be numbered among Christ's disciples.4 It is men
tioned in that summary of elementary truths with which
St. John commences his gospel, "As many as received
Him, to them gave He the right to become children of
God, even to them that believe on His name, who were
begotten, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of
the will of man, but of God."5 In the discourse which
Jesus delivered to Nicodemus on the nature of the new
birth (or begetting), without which there could be no
entrance into His kingdom,6 a similar relation is affirmed
between faith and the transmission of the Divine life.
The "only- begotten Son," in participation of Whose nature
the new birth consists, was "given" by God, "that who
soever believeth in Him should not perish, but have
eternal life."7 St. John has been said to be the apostle
of love, as St. Paul is of faith. But it is extremely difficult
to understand how so strange a statement can have been

1 Gen. xv. 6. 2 Gal. iii. 9.

3 Hab. ii. 4. It must, however, be confessed (see p. 19) that the
word here may possibly mean trustworthiness or fidelity.

4 Mark i. 15, xvi. 16 ; Acts xvi. 31.
6 John i. 12. (See margin. )

6 John iii. 5. Cf. John xx. 31 (cited below).

7 John iii. 16.

POSITION OF FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME. 17

made. The word faith (7r«ms) does not, it is true, occur
once in St. John's Gospel. But the word believe (Trio-revoo)
occurs nearly one hundred times in St. John's Gospel
alone, and ten times in his first short Epistle. He repre
sents Christ as declaring this belief in Himself to be the
foundation of all true life. " He that belie veth hath eternal
life,"1 even though he die.2 He shall even be a fountain of
life to others.3 And this truth is enforced in a variety of
ways by our Lord throughout the whole of St. John's
Gospel. The object he had in view in writing his Gospel
cc is that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that,
so believing, ye may have life in His name."4 Upon these
facts he bases the statement in his Epistle that to believe is
to have the witness of God concerning His Son in oneself ;
and this witness he further defines as consisting in the
realization of two truths; first, that God has given to
mankind eternal life; and next, that this eternal life is
in His Son. To have the Son is to have the life; not to
have the Son is to be without it. 5

St. Paul is equally emphatic. In every Epistle he bears
witness to the importance of faith. It is the first of the
three imperishable principles of the Christian life, of which
the outcome, love, is the last and greatest.6 In the Epistle
in which he unfolds his system of teaching most fully, he
places faith in the forefront as justifying a man, by impart
ing to him a righteousness which is no work of his own,
but comes from God through Jesus Christ.7 He had
previously paved the way for this teaching by antici
pating, in his Epistle to the Galatians, the statement

1 John vi. 47. There is considerable early authority for adding
"on me," with the Authorised Version.

2 John xi. 25. 3 John vii. 38. 4 John xx. 31.
5 1 John v. 10-12.

8 1 Cor. xiii. 13 ; Gal. v. 6. Cf. 1 Tim. i. 5.
7 Rom. i. 17 ; iii. 22 ; v. 1, 18, 19.

18 THE CREED.

of St. John, that "we are all sons" (or "children")
"of God through faith in Christ Jesus."1 He declares that
through this faith, and not by any works done in obedience
to law, are we justified;2 and that the life the Christian
lives in the flesh is the life of the Son of God appropriated
by faith. 3 It were needless to point out how continually, in
all his Epistles, St. Paul insists on the truth that faith is the
necessary condition whereby the renovating stream of the
Divine life of Christ flows to the believer.4 It is admitted
on all hands. It will be sufficient to add that the rest of
the sacred writers, if less emphatic, are no less clear in their
adhesion to the principle. Even the synoptic narratives,
which confine themselves to the narration of the historical
events of the life of Christ, and to His moral teaching,
agree in representing the communication of His miraculous
gifts to be dependent upon the faith of the receiver,5 and
the unreserved acceptance of His teaching to be a paramount
duty among His disciples. The Apostles preached belief in
Christ as the necessary condition of admission into the
Divine society.6 St. Peter puts faith in the very forefront
of his teaching;7 St. James evidently attaches the highest
importance to it, if it be evidenced by suitable works.8
In the Epistle to the Hebrews it is declared to be one of
the first principles of Christian doctrine.9 Even St. Jude's
short Epistle gives great prominence to it.10 And though it
is seldom mentioned in the great and mysterious vision

1 Gal. iii. 26. 2 Gal. ii. 16. 3 Gal. ii. 20.

4 See, for instance, Rom. i. 5 ; iv. 5, 9, 12, 16 ; xiv. 23. Gal. iii.
2, 5. Eph. i. 13 ; ii. 8 ; iv. 13, &c.

6 e.g., Matt. ix. 28; xiii. 58. Mark v. 36; ix. 23, &c. Of. Acts
xiv. 9.

6 e.g., Acts viii. 12 ; x. 43 ; xvi. 31 [viii. 37 is omitted in R.V.j.
Cf. Mark i. 15.

7 1 Peter i. 5. 8 James ii. 18. Of. i. 3.
9 Heb. vi. 1, 2. 10 Jude 3, 20.

POSITION OF FATTH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME. 19

bequeathed to the Christian Church by the disciple whom
Jesus loved, it is mentioned in a way which shows the
writer to have as high an appreciation of its necessity as
any other writer in the sacred canon.1

Since, then, faith occupies so important a position in the
Christian scheme, it is pre-eminently necessary to understand
in what it consists. The word is used in different senses in
Scripture. In the Old Testament it is scarcely to be found.
The verb "to believe" does not occur very often;2 and
in every case the verb signifies to rely on, to trust in, while
the word translated faith properly means trustworthiness,3
though, beside the passive sense of trustworthiness, the
active sense of trustfulness is also found. Thus, the famous
passage, Abraham " believed in the Lord, and He counted it
unto him for righteousness,"4 must be interpreted of trust.
It was Abraham's trust or confidence in God which God
regarded as righteousness on Abraham's part.

The words translated, believe, faith, in the New Testa
ment, have also several significations. They mean acceptance
of a proposition, as in Matthew ix. 28, and Matthew xxi. 25,
"Believe ye that I am able to do this?" " Y>rhy, then, did

1 Rev. ii. 13, 19. The acknowledgment of the facts of the unseen
world is a condition of the spiritual life throughout the Apocalypse.

8 Exod. iv. 5. Num. xiv. 11 ; xx. 12. Deut. i. 32 ; ix. 23.
2 Chron. xx. 20. Ps. Ixxviii. 22, 32. Isa. xliii. 10. Dan. vi. 23
(24, Chald). The word in this last passage clearly means trusLed.
It occurs in a few other passages, in relation to God.

3 So in Deut. xxxii. 20 ; "children on whom 110 reliance can be
placed." And in Habakkuk, as we have seen (p. 16), the meaning
may be "the just shall live by his trustworthiness" See Exod.
xvii. 12, where it is translated "steady" in R.V. (lit. reliance or
steadiness}. In Psalm xxxvii. 3 it either means security, or is use-d
adverbially " trustfully." Also in 2 Chronicles xx. 20 one voice of
the verb (the Hiphil) is translated "believe"; and another (the
Niphal) is translated "be established." And so in Isa. vii. 9,

* Gen. xv. 6.

20 THE ORBED,

ye not believe him " (i.e., what he said) I1 They mean trust,
as in Matthew xviii. 6, where " Believe on Me " seems to
mean put confidence in Me. (See also Matt. ix. 29 ; Luke i.
20, 45; Eph. vi. 16, &c.) Faith in the catalogue of
Christian virtues given in Galatians v. 22, is supposed, by
the best commentators, to mean trustworthiness (see also
Matt, xxiii. 23). Again, faith sometimes means the profes
sion of faith required of a true Christian, and is almost
equivalent to Creed, as in Acts xiii. 8 ; Philippians i. 27 ;
Jude 3 ; Revelation ii. 13.2 But in by far the greater
number of passages in the New Testament it is used in the
sense indicated by the only definition of faith contained in
Scripture — that in Hebrews xi. 1, where it is described as
"the assurance of things hoped for, the proof of things
not seen."3 In other words, it means the faculty, or
instinct, which realizes the truths of the unseen world, and
produces in the mind a definite conviction of their
existence. It answers to the power of sight in the natural

1 Of. James ii. 19. "Thou art persuaded that God is one ... the
devils also are persuaded." Cf. Acts viii. 12. iricms (faith) never
means the simple acceptance of a proposition, save in St. James, and
this different use of the word in his epistle is the key to the apparent
divergence of his teaching, on justification, from that of St. Paul.

8 An elaborate examination of this subject, with the aid of the
latest authorities, will be found in Canon Liddon's Commentary on the
Romans, in that of Professors Sanday and Headlam on the same
Epistle, and in that of Professor J. B. Mayor on St. James.

3 The word uToo-rao-ts properly means the basis on which a thing
rests, and hence comes to mean the confidence which a knowledge of
facts is wont to supply. It sometimes means that which is at the
root of all manifestations of personal and individual being — what we
call substance, or personality. Here it means not only the confident
assurance of the fulfilment of his hopes, which the believer should
possess, but the spiritual faculty on which this assurance rests.
ZXeyxos (proof, or conviction) means here the conviction produced in
the soul of the reality of unseen facts, by the new sense with which
the believer in Christ is endowed. See Bishop Westcott's note on
the passage. Also note A, at end of book.

POSITION OP FAJTH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME. 21

world, whence faith has been called " the eye of the soul."
It is distinguished from knowledge, in that knowledge is
obtained by observation and experience, while faith, being
an intuition, must depend largely, like sight, upon the
condition of the organ which discerns it. This strong
conviction of the truths which lie outside the sphere of
the senses stands at the foundation of the redeemed life
of holiness. Without such strong conviction, the life of con
secration and self-devotion demanded from a Christian would
be a simple impossibility. A man must definitely realize
(1) that God is good, (2) that He desires the well-being of
His creatures, and (3) that He is able and willing to re-create
them in His likeness, before he can desire or endeavour to
serve Him. It is on this practical necessity that the
relation of faith to works depends. If faith be that which
apprehends and assimilates the facts of the invisible world,
its presence in the human spirit must tend to produce
conformity in the life of the believer to the truths which
it has enabled him to realize. Faith, then, in the sense in
which it is required of each member of the Christian
Church, is not so much an assent to propositions as an appre
hension of facts. But if it be indeed the apprehension of
the facts of the invisible world, as sight is the apprehension
of the facts of the visible world, it follows that faith is
opposed, not to reason, as some have incorrectly supposed —
for the conclusions of faith, like those of knowledge, are
capable of verification by observation and experience — but,
as St. Paul has opposed it, to sight1 — that is, the appre
hension of things visible — and to sight only so far as the
apprehension of visible things tends to obscure the appre
hension of those which are invisible. For we need to bear
in mind that there is no necessary antagonism between the
visible and the invisible. It is only the diseased spiritual
1 2 Cor. v. 7.

22 THE CREED.

organization which man inherits from his forefathers that
has caused any discordance between the two. And the
discordance is not in the nature of things itself, buo in
man's disordered moral condition, which hinders him from
perceiving the things which are invisible. As he thus sees
plainly the facts of the visible world, but fails altogether to
discern those of the invisible world without supernatural
assistance, it follows that he very frequently ignores the
truths which are of most consequence to him, and pays
regard only to those which are within his power to grasp.
Hence the things which he sees disturb his relations to
the things he does not, and cannot, see, by causing him to
entertain an altogether exaggerated idea of the importance
of the former. Thus the antagonism between faith and
sight is simply due to the disorder of man's nature, not to
anything which is inherent in the Universe of God. Faith,
then, and sight are, temporarily at least, opposed to one
another. But reason and faith are never so opposed. If
there be an opposition, it is not between reason and faith,
but either between unreason and faith, or between reason
and a faith which has gone astray. We have either misused
the former, or failed rightly to exercise the latter. For
reason is the complement, the exponent of faith. Derived
from reor, it means the action of one who thinks. But,
as no one can possibly think unless he has something
to think about, there needs some object on which reason
can be exercised. In the visible world, that object is
supplied by our perceptions of the phenomena which are
revealed to sight, or, as we say, to observation.1 In the
invisible world, reason is exercised on the things discernible
by faith.

1 Much valuable information on the source and nature of knowledge
will be found in Dr. MAKTINEAU'S A Study of Religion. In his

POSITION OF FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME. 23

The relation, then, of reason to faith, is that the former
is occupied with the elucidation and application of the facts
made known to us through the medium of the latter.1
But it would be a mistake to infer from this that faith

Introduction to Book i. (p. 37), he says of those who deny the
possibility of knowledge, " This doctrine of Nescience professes to be
the result of an exhaustive scrutiny of the cognitive faculties, and an
exact measurement of their resources against the objects to which
they may address themselves. These processes of psychological
stock-taking we have apparently as much reason to dread as the
mismanaging creditor to shrink from the audit of his accounts ; for,
somehow, they are always disclosing bad debts, and reducing our
intellectual capital nearer to bankruptcy. Each successive critique of
the human mind contrives to detect some new incapacity in the place
of a supposed knowledge." The truth is that knowledge is, at best,
imperfect. All phenomena have their roots in infinity, and conse
quently are like an infinite series in mathematics ; we can but
approximate to them as nearly as is necessary for practical purposes.
Nor is there anything unreasonable in this. To take an example.
Astronomical science, from a practical point of view, is simply a
vast collection of approximations. And yet it is able to predict
eclipses and other celestial phenomena, and to guide the mariner
safely in every direction across the trackless ocean. "We must,
moreover, remember that while the perceptions of the individual
may be very untrustworthy, such cannot be said of the percep
tions of mankind in general. The elementary perceptions which are
common to all mankind must either be accepted as knowledge, or
we must, if consistent, abandon all attempts at thought. And,
if thought be abandoned, all intelligent action must follow,
and man must be reduced to a level with the amoeba. In this
volume we shall assume that phenomena ascertained by observation,
as well as laws established upon the results of such observation, have
a real objective existence and operation. If the theory of seme
metaphysicians be true, that such laws are mere subjective conceptions
of the human mind, all certainty becomes impossible, all argument
superfluous, See also p. 54.

1 " The Theology of the future must combine in one, and so resolve
in a higher generalization, that distinction between natural religion,
based on what is known as the truths of Theism common to all
mankind, and revealed religion, based on those higher mysteries
which are peculiar to the Christian revelation. This contrast, like

24 THE CREED.

itself involves no exercise of the intellect. One of the
most serious errors into which modern popular theology has
fallen has been the determination to see in faith the work
entirely of the heart,1 as opposed to that of the head.
Hence the vague and unsatisfactory character of a good
deal of modern religionism. Christianity has become, to
many, a mere unreasoning impulse — :a strong persuasion
without any rational foundation — in fact, a species of
fanaticism. But there is obviously an intellectual side to
faith. Before believing in any thing or any one, we must
have formed some conception of the thing, or person,
believed in. Some idea of the essence and attributes of
God must have preceded belief in Him. Some knowledge
of the life, character, and claims of Jesus Christ must
have been gained, before belief in Him becomes possible.
Nor can even the distinctly spiritual side of faith be
resolved into an unreasoning impulse. For faith is the
energy which converts into action our perceptions of the
world unseen, which impels us to conduct in harmony
with the truths we have discerned.2

This brings us to another sense of the word faith, which

that between natural and supernatural, will not stand the test of
modern criticism, since all revelation implies nature, and the natural
leads up to the supernatural as its goal and ultimatum. We cannot
put reason and faith in this way into separate compartments of
thought, and throw open the former only to free inquiry, while we
regard the latter as a kind of sacred enclosure into which reason is
not to enter at all, or only under certain limitations of its free
exercise, which are fatal to its very existence as reason." HEAIID,
Old and New Theology, p. 67.

1 In Isa. vi. 10, we find no such antagonism. Man "understands
with the heart." Cf. Matt. xiii. 15 ; John xii. 40 ; Acts xxviii. 26 ;
2 Cor. iii. 15. But it may, of course, be questioned whether the
term "heart" was used in precisely the same sense in the Old
Testament as in the ISTew.

" See PEARSON, On the Creed, p. 4, " On the Nature of Faith."

POSITION OP FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME. 25

has been already mentioned. The intuition which discerns
the perfect goodness and holiness of God leads, of necessity,
to an implicit trust in Him. The faculty which discerns
invisible truths involves conduct in unison with the truths
so discerned. He who, to any extent, sees God as He is,
will be led to mould his actions upon his belief. Otherwise
he cannot really believe the truths in which he professes
belief. To suppose that a man would deliberately act in
opposition to the assured conviction he entertains that God
is infinitely wise, infinitely good, infinitely loving, hating
nothing but evil, willing the good of all His creatures, and
possessing unlimited power to carry out His wise, loving,
and holy Will, is to suppose a moral impossibility. Here,
then, we find the solution of the difficulty which has so
long perplexed theologians concerning the functions of faith
and works respectively, in man's salvation. They are as
inseparable from one another as the stream from its source.
Faith is the source, good works the stream. Or, to use
another metaphor, faith is the tree, good works its fruit.
He who apprehends God as He has revealed Himself in
Christ, will not only seek to do His Will, but will rest on
His Divine enabling power for the strength to perform
that Will. Objectively, of course, the Will of God
is the source whence we obtain the victory over sin.
Subjectively, however, faith is the source, inasmuch as it
is the means whereby we realize that Divine Purpose in
our hearts. 1

The fact, however, mentioned above, which will be dis
cussed more fully hereafter, of man's diseased and disordered

1 See this subject further discussed in chap. v. The words objective
and subjective require explanation. That is called objective which
exists independently of our conceptions of it. The word subjective
refers not to things in themselves, but to the conceptions we form
of them.

26 THE CREED.

nature, has rendered him incapable of discerning or acting
upon spiritual facts as he ought. In spiritual matters he is
in a similar condition to that of the man with defective
vision in the world of sense. His spiritual perceptions
convey to him at best but blurred, indistinct images of
things unseen ; and, in many cases, he can barely perceive
anything at all. The principle upon which the Christian
Church is founded — an assent to which is required from
every person claiming to belong to her — is, that as man
is incapable, to a great extent, by his natural condition,
and still more in consequence of his fall into sin, of dis
cerning, apprehending, what lies outside the realm of sense,
it has pleased God to intervene by a special revelation of
these truths. This revelation was communicated, in the
barest outline, to the patriarchs; made more definite, on
some points, by the Mosaic Law; still further expanded
by the ministry of a succession of inspired prophets, who
developed the spirit of that law ; and finally completed
by the Eternal Word, Who assumed human flesh in order
to communicate to man the truths he was otherwise unable
to apprehend, to restore to him that inner fellowship with
God which he had lost, and to develop, in its highest
perfection, the spiritual part of his being, by virtue of
which he is described as "created in the image of God."1
No evidence in proof of the Fall will be adduced here.

1 Gen. i. 26. For this view of the object of Christ's Mission, see
Athanasius, De Incarnatione Verbi Dei, c. 13. " For this cause the
Word of God came by His own instrumentality, in order that He, as
the Image of the Father, might be able to create man again according
to that Image. . . . For no one but the Image of the Father was
capable of such a task." "The possession of human nature by the
Divine Son aifords the link whereby the powers of God are really
communicated to man, so far as-man is capable of receiving them." —
Church Quarterly Review, January, 1892, p. 275, in a review of Canon
Gore's Bampton Lectures. See this point further elucidated in
chap. v.

POSITION OP FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME. 27

If man ever had an " original righteousness " to lose, there
can be little doubt that he has lost it ; and even if he had
not, the sole fact with which we are concerned here is,
that the moral weakness and moral obliquity of his present
condition incapacitates him for union with the good, and
even for understanding aright in what the good consists.
Neither shall we enter into a proof of the fact that a
revelation has been made. That is the province of Chris
tian evidence, into which it is not our intention to enter.
The arguments for a revelation are addressed to unbelievers.
The present treatise is designed for those who are willing to
accept the teaching of Christ, but desire more information
as to the nature of that teaching. Our object is to inquire
what we learn from the revelation of God in Christ on
points on which our reason is not a sufficient guide. That
revelation instructs us (1) on the nature of God, and (2) on
the method God has adopted to deliver mankind from the
corruption into which sin has plunged him. These are the
spiritual facts which reason is incompetent to discern, and
for the apprehension of which faith is the appointed organ.
But reason, as we have already seen, has its proper place in
relation to revelation. As its function, in regard to the
facts of the visible world, is to observe, classify, and draw
conclusions from them, so, in regard to the things of faith,
the task of reason is (1) to ascertain, from the proper
sources, in what revelation consists; (2) as far as possible
to make clear its terms to human apprehension; and (3)
to develop its principles, by free inquiry and discussion,
until a general consent is arrived at, not only in regard to
the principles themselves, but to their application to human
thought and conduct. At present, as far as theology is con
cerned, we are scarcely liberated from the tendency to settle
questions by a reference to authority of the same kind as
that which barred the progress of science for so many

28 THE CREED.

centuries. It is sad, moreover, to have to confess that, as far
as religion is concerned, our progress in comprehending the
truths of religion has not been barred by authority alone,
but by authority backed by clamour, by violence, by unfair
pressure, and even by physical force. From the disastrous
moment when it occurred to Constantine to enforce the deci
sions of the Council of Nicaea by sentences of banishment,
until long after the Reformation, the resort to physical force
was believed to be not only a necessity, but a duty. And when
physical force, happily, went out of fashion, violence and
clamour still continued to be employed. We appear, how
ever, at last, to be approaching the era when fair and full
discussion have become possible ; and we may, therefore,
hope to arrive at the happy results so long delayed. But
if they are to be no further delayed, it will be necessary to
remember that reason can no more tell us what the facts
of the spiritual world are than it can tell us what the
facts of the natural world are. From the beginning of the
world until now, men have laboured to discover spiritual
facts by reason alone, and those who have done so are no
nearer to a conclusion than they were when they began.
For our knowledge of spiritual facts, therefore, we must
depend on Revelation, as apprehended by faith ; just as,
for our knowledge of natural facts, we depend upon obser
vation. The belief in Revelation depends entirely upon
the belief in God. Just so far as we have ground for the
belief that there exists a Being — just, wise, holy, true —
from "Whose boundless stores of life and energy flow all
that we see around us, all powers of life and thought
within ourselves, shall we be inclined to expect that He
will furnish us with sufficient instruction concerning Him
self and His requirements to place us in a position to fulfil
them. But we are not to suppose that we have here
entered upon the so-called " vicious circle." That the

POSITION OP FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME. 29

reason we employ on the truths made known by Revelation,
is also employed in arriving at the truth concerning Him
on Whose existence Revelation depends, is quite true. But
even here our belief in God docs not, as we shall see in the
next chapter, depend on reason alone, but on the needs,
the cravings, the instincts, the intuitions of our nature.
That is to say, it does not depend only upon one particular
part of man's complex organization, but upon man's per
ceptions as a whole. These perceptions, operating inde
pendently of our reason, and sometimes even contrary to
the conclusions at which it has arrived by mistaken pro
cesses, testify to the fact of the Divine existence with a
force that is irresistible by the vast majority of mankind.1

An expression of willingness to receive the first principles
of revealed truth, has, from the beginning, as we have seen,
been demanded as a necessary condition of entrance into the
Christian Church. As baptism was the ceremony by which
initiation into the Christian Church was effected, so the
expression of belief was a condition precedent to baptism.2
This was a necessity, first of all, because of the personal
need of the individual believer ; and, next, because baptism
was the admission into a society in which the confession
of Christ was a primary necessity. And hence arose the
various summaries of Christian belief, called creeds, which

1 " Everyone who has had any intercourse with the poor of Christ's
flock, will be aware of the perfectly clear vision with which simple
unsophisticated minds are able to discern and to lay hold upon Him.
Whether we call it an application of a special sense, or religious
instinct, or the gift of the Holy Spirit — as a matter of fact there is
some power of apprehension of Christ and of Christian mysteries,
which is as wonderful as it is undeniable." Bp. HARVEY GOODWIN,
The Foundations of the Creed, pp. 27, 28.

2 Mark xvi. 16 ; Acts ii. 41 ; xvi. 30-32. Into the question of
Infant Baptism we cannot yet enter ; but the Church has invariably
required a public expression of belief from the adult, in Confirmation
or Holy Communion, or both.

30 THE CREED.

have been in use from the beginning in all Christian com
munities.1 An outline of such a confession of faith is found
in the opening verses of 1 Cor. xv. But we find another in
the Prologue of St. John's Gospel. It is, perhaps, in some
ways to be regretted that the latter, rather than the former,
form has not been adopted as the type of our summaries of
Christian belief. But, however this may be, the historical,
not the theological, form has been the pattern on which
our baptismal and other formularies of belief have been
modelled, and which are contained in our own Prayer Book,
under the names of the Apostles' and the Nicene Creeds.
The form of these summaries of the faith appear, as we
have seen, to have been regarded as of less consequence
than the substance.2 But if the Church was to continue in
the Apostles' doctrine (or teaching),3 a summary of some
kind was absolutely necessary. It would have been im
possible, in those early times, to have left Christians to
infer the essentials of their faith from a volume which few of
them possessed. Such a task is a difficult and a dangerous
one even now, when Bibles are plentiful. So St. Paul has
been regarded as advising Timothy to teach the Creed, when
he wrote " Hold the pattern of sound words which thou

1 As we have already seen (p. 2), the early Church was more concerned
with the spirit than with the form of these confessions of faith. No
universal formulary of faith was drawn up in the Apostolic age, nor
for some time afterwards. But, although the Apostles' Creed is
supposed, in its present shape, to date from the fourth century, it
cannot be contended that it is the product of a development. For,
to say nothing of the abstracts of faith contained in Scripture, we
have substantially identical confessions in IGNATIUS, Epistle to
Trallians, c. 9 ; IE.ENAETJS, Adv. Haer. i. 10 ; and in TERTULLIAN,
De Praeser. Haer. c. xiii. See also 2 Tim. ii. 8, Heb. vi. 1, 2.

2 See SWETE, Apostles' Creed, passim. In his Appendices he gives
a variety of forms of Creed which the student will find it most
interesting to compare.

3 Acts ii. 42.

POSITION OP FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME. 31

hast heard from me, in faith and love which is in Christ
Jesus."1 The confession of faith required by Philip from
the eunuch (Acts viii. 37) is omitted by many ancient
authorities.2 But the connexion between belief and baptism
existed from the very beginning,3 and it is clear that, in the
Apostolic days, some such profession was demanded from
those who desired to enter the Christian Church.4

It is matter for regret that, in the controversies sub
sequent to the Reformation, the value, and even the
necessity, of holding firmly to the summaries of revealed
truth handed down in the Church from the beginning, has
not been sufficiently appreciated. The reaction against the
doctrines of the supremacy of the Pope, and the infalli
bility, if not of the Pope, at least of the Church, was
unhappily carried so far as to deny in toto the value of
Church tradition and of Church authority. Thus, a ten
dency has grown up to decry even the most elementary
summaries of the most necessary "first principles of" the
doctrine of "Christ" (Heb. vi. 1) as "sectarian formu
laries," and to insist on the Bible as the only standard
of divine truth. But these summaries, thus handed down
by universal consent from the very earliest ages of the
Church, are as necessary to the proper understanding
of the Scriptures — to those who would " prophesy "

1 2 Tim. i 13. A better translation is "have a pattern of (the)
health-giving (wholesome, see below) words which thou hast heard
from me." In other words, "draw up a brief summary of the first
principles of the faith," described in the next verse as "the good
deposit." (See 1 Tim. vi. 20.) See also 2 Thess. ii. 15, 1 Tim. vi. 3,
2 Tim. Hi. 14, Titus i. 9, Heb. x. 23 (the R.V., however, here has
hope), Rev. ii. 25. The translation "wholesome words," in 1 Tim.
vi. 3 (A.V.), gives the best sense, both there and in 2 Tim. i. 13.

2 It is, however, as old as Cyprian, and even Irenaeus.

3 Mark xvi. 16. This verse, whether a part of St. Mark's original
Gospel or not, is admittedly of the very highest antiquity.

4 See, for instance, Heb. iv. 14, x. 23, and Acts xvii. 31-34,

32 THE CREED.

according to the proper "proportion of the faith"1 — as a
map is to a man landed in a strange country.2 For the
Bible is a volume of wide range and of much complexity.
It embraces at least four several revelations of the Divine
Will, each modifying, and to a certain extent superseding,
that which went before it. And the Bible is, moreover,
eminently unsystematic in its character. Even the New
Testament seldom lays down systematically all the main
principles of Christian belief, and hardly ever so em
phatically as we should have expected. It refers to them,
takes them for granted, mentions one or other of them in
the course of an argument or exhortation, illustrates and
applies them by turns. But it almost invariably assumes
rather than states them. And though the New Testament
is unquestionably an authoritative and inspired exposition
of the principles of our holy religion, yet it is clearly an
exposition of those principles, not the actual principles

1 Rom. xii. 6.

2 So Tertullian tells us in his De Praescriptione, c. xiii. sqq. He
says that the Scriptures, though they teach the truth, can only be
properly understood by those who accept the rule of faith (by which
he means the Creed) which has been handed down from the beginning.
This is the true function of tradition — to hand down what has been
universally held in the Christian Church. We reject the traditions
of the Roman Church, not because they are traditions, but because
they have not been held from the beginning, were not taught by the
Apostles, and were not handed down in the Creeds. Tertullian's
treatise was written at the end of the second or beginning of the
third century A.D. So says Vincentius of Lerins in the fifth century.
He asks why ecclesiastical authority should be invoked if Scripture
itself be sufficient to decide controverted points. And he replies that
" mankind at large do not receive Scripture in one and the same sense,
but some explain it in one way and some in another." Hence the
need of our appeal to the voice of the universal Church to protect
us against the partial interpretations of individuals ; the appeal to
"universitas, antiquitas, consensio," as necessary criteria of a doctrine
of the Christian faith. See his First Commonitorium, c. 2.

POSITION OF FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME. 33

themselves. Moreover, while it is necessary that we should
be aole to state, and to a certain extent to understand and
explain, the nature of those principles, it is by no means
so necessary that we should be able to understand and
explain all the difficult points which present themselves
in the exposition of them, however authoritative, however
inspired, that exposition may be. The main principles
of our belief are simple, and capable of being easily taught
and apprehended. But, considered in their application and
results, they are practically infinite ; they involve mysteries
of the most inscrutable kind. And he who desires to work
them out in every detail, undertakes a task to which nearly
nineteen centuries of the Church's career has proved in
adequate.

Nor do we find that the New Testament was originally
regarded in the Church as the source or germ of the faith
which was "once for all (a?ra£) delivered to the Saints."1
The New Testament was written for those to whom that
faith had been already delivered. Theophilus had been
already "instructed" (or catechized) in the facts, of the
truth of which St. Luke desires him to "know the
certainty."2 The books of the New Testament arose as
circumstances dictated. They were either biographies of
Christ and repositories of His teaching, or applications
of Christian doctrines to the needs of those who had
already accepted the faith; or, as in the case of the
Apocalypse, forecasts of the struggle between the faith
and the powers of evil in the ages to come. But no
Canon of the New Testament was ever delivered to the
first believers in Christ, nor, indeed, was any such Canon
framed until centuries afterwards. Nor are the writers in
the New Testament engaged in drawing up articles of

1 Jude 3. This is the rendering of R.V. But "once" seems pre
ferable. See 2 Cor. xi. 25 ; Phil. i. 16, etc. etc. a Luke i. 4.

34 THE CREED.

faith.1 It cannot be too strongly insisted on, that the
articles of our faith are few in number, and simple in
their character.2 They do not involve abstruse propositions
about Justification, Atonement, Original Sin, the nature
of the Presence in the Eucharist, and the like. Not such
propositions as these, but the simple facts contained in the
Creeds, and applied to the Christian consciousness in all ages
by the Apostolic writings, constitute the tradition handed
down in the Church — "ubique, semper, et ab omnibus."3

If this fact be clearly understood, it will place the contro
versies of mediaeval and modern times in their true relation
to the first principles of the Catholic Faith. The contro
versies of the first five centuries relate to fundamental, those
of later times to secondary, or, as Canon Gore has called
them, " dependent " doctrines of our holy religion. On the

1 COLERIDGE, in his Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, p. 51,
denies that the Scriptures are "a Creed, of which each sentence
is an article."

2 "At least it is a fact that the dogmas which have the assent of
the whole Church, which are imposed in the Church of England, are
few in number, and we can see in this the Hand of Providence."
GORE, Bampton Lectures, p. 109.

3 The writer is glad to have the support of Bishop Harvey Goodwin
for this view in his Foundations of the Creed : ' ' Not unfrequently, if
I am not mistaken, hearts are made sad which God does not desire to
make sad, by unauthorized claims made on behalf of matters concern
ing which the Church has not required that faith should be expressed.
A doctrine, it is true, may be such as ought to demand the assent of
those who are commissioned to preach the Gospel to others, may be
one concerning which it may be well that preachers should speak in
the pulpit ; and yet it may never have been marked by any adequate
authority as of such a kind that the profession of it should be re
quired from the rank and file of the army of Christ. In fact, if we
calmly examine the matter, we shall perceive that the simpler the
profession of faith, the better for the army and for all concerned.
The intention is to include, not to exclude ; to embrace the whole
world, if it will be embraced." (Preface, pp. 12, 13.) The Bishop
goes on to speak of the doctrines of the Inspiration of Scripture,

POSITION OF FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME. 35

first we need definite and peremptory utterances; on the
second we may be content to wait for the ultimate verdict
of the Christian society. Moreover, on the first class of
question the whole Catholic Church is practically agreed;
on the second it is hopelessly divided. The period of the
Oecumenical Councils closes with the eighth, or, as some
would prefer to say, the fifth century of the Christian era.
Since that time there have been councils, but they have not
been councils of the whole Church ; doctrinal decisions, but
not possessing Oecumenical authority. Moreover, the latter
decisions have lacked the element of full and free discussion,
which is essential to a genuine pronouncement of the
Universal Church of Christ. For all these reasons we are
compelled to accept as authoritative only the formal deci
sions which have been arrived at by the whole early and
undivided Church1 ; on all other questions, however general

of Original Sin, of Justification, of Predestination and Election, and
of the Authority of the Church and of the mode whereby grace is
transmitted through the Sacraments as doctrines which, though by
no means unimportant, are not placed before the recipient of baptism
as necessary articles of faith. And he proceeds (p. 17): "Attacks
upon Christianity are not to be considered as fatal unless they are
successful in showing that the Apostles' Creed cannot be held by
honest and reasonable men." I confess that for "Apostles' Creed"
in this last passage I should have been inclined to put " Nicene," as
the only public authoritative statement the Church has ever made
concerning the essentials of the faith. It is a satisfaction to find the
same principles proclaimed by men of quite a different school at the
sister University. Canon Gore says: "On the basis of a moderate
amount of central dogma, it may be the discipline intended for every
Christian that he should grow, according to the measure of his oppor
tunity and capacity, into a fuller and fuller perception of the meaning
of the faith." After deprecating "over-legislation," he proceeds:
" It may have been desirable to guard dogmatically the central truths
of Christ's person ; but undesirable, quite apart from questions of
truth and error, to do the same for dependent doctrines." Bampton
Lectures, p. 109. See this question further discussed in chapter vii.
1 On this point, see p. 155.

36 THE CREED.

the consensus of opinion may have been, it is our duty to
reserve our judgment. We hold these not to be Catholic
doctrines. At best they are but pious opinions ; and as the
Christian Church has never undertaken to lay down a formal
code of laws to which all Christians are called upon to give
obedience, we regard no custom, however widespread, as a
Catholic custom unless it can be shown to have had the
sanction of Jesus Christ Himself or His Apostles.1

To sum up what has been said. Faith is the necessary
condition of the Christian life so far as man is concerned,
because by it alone the Divine Humanity of Jesus Christ —
the root-principle of our regenerate life — is appropriated.
The word faith has several significations in Scripture, but
the principal one represents it as the faculty which realizes
the facts of the unseen world. It is opposed to knowledge,
in that the latter is acquired by our own exertions, while
the former is imparted in precise proportion to our capacity
for receiving it. As it has to do with things unseen, it
is opposed, in the teaching of the Apostles, to sight, i.e.,
the apprehension of things visible. But there is no opposi
tion between it and reason; indeed, reason is employed
as naturally upon the things revealed to faith, as it is, in the
world of sense, upon the phenomena revealed by sensation.
But faith is no mere sentiment. It has its intellectual as
well as its practical side, for it must conceive of the truths
it discerns through revelation. If we ask why revelation is
required, the answer is, that it is rendered necessary by the
disordered condition of man's moral and spiritual faculties.
Our conviction of its truth rests upon our antecedent belief
in God as a good and wise Being, and flows necessarily from
that belief. A confession of faith has always been required

1 Even the decrees of the Council of Jerusalem (Acts xv.) were
only of local and temporary obligation. They have never been re
garded as universally binding.

POSITION OF FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME. 37

from each individual Christian ; first, on the ground of his
personal need of the truth revelation makes known to him ;
and next, as a member of the Christian society. Hence,
the origin of Confessions of Faith, or Creeds, as they have
been called from their commencing with the word Credo,
I believe. 1 They are brief summaries of the first principles
of the Christian faith, and a number of authentic docu
ments of the first age of the Christian Church have been
handed down to make it clear to us that the original
doctrine of the Christian Church was such as the Creeds
represent it to be. Thus, the New Testament is the witness
for the Christian Creed, and the Creed is the summary
of fundamental truth to which the contents of the New
Testament bear witness. Those fundamental doctrines, and
those alone, constitute the "Catholic faith" which every
Christian is required to profess. Other doctrines, whether
deduced from them or added to them by ecclesiastical
authority in later times, are not binding in the sense in
which the original teaching of Jesus Christ is binding, but
must be regarded as "pious opinions" of more or less
weight.2 No ecclesiastical rules of any kind (if we except
the two Sacraments expressly ordained by Christ, Confirma
tion as practised by the Apostles, and the observance of the
Lord's Day) can be regarded as obligatory for all time upon
the Church of Christ.

1 Pearson mentions lio\v St. Augustine distinguishes between
credere in Deum and credere Deum. " Ille credit in Deum qui ct
sperat in Christum, et diligit Christum." But in the Greek of the
Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed the preposition els is used of belief
in the Catholic Church as well as of belief in the Holy Trinity,
though the word "in" is omitted in our translation, ets, like in
with the accusative in Latin, has the sense of unto or upon rather
than in.

2 See this question discussed between a Russian and a Swisa
Professor of Theology in the Revue Internationale (the Old Catholic
organ for promoting the reunion of Christendom) for October 1893,
pp. 634, 638, 639. Professor Swetlofl', of St. Petersburg, says:

THE CREED.

It is always permissible, of course, for anyone to re-
examine the foundations of his faith for himself. But it
is not very likely that the Catholic Church at large will
find it needful to do so. The decisions of the early
Councils have been tested intellectually, and they have
been tested practically ; and they have stood both tests. The
truths to which those decisions bear witness are briefly
these : We believe in One God existing in three Persons,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Father, as

"Dogmas place before us the Divine element of Christian knowledge.
They are the truths which are given by God Himself to man through
the instrumentality of the Church. The human element is repre
sented by the believing reason, which receives and assimilates these
truths. From the combination of these two elements, their agreement
and disagreement, arise new truths of a subordinate, because human,
description ; that is to say, private (intermediate) theological
opinions." And he adds that "the limits of the human under
standing permit us to grasp revealed truth only partially," and that
this limitation of our faculties often brings down our conceptions of
things Divine to a purely human level. He concludes : "What the
Church has not denned is a subject on which not only every theologian,
but also every Christian, is free to enjoy his own personal opinion."
Of course, by the Church's definition, a formal definition is meant —
a fact which seems to have escaped many who have undertaken to tell
us what "the Church says," or has said. So Professor Michaud, in
his comment on Professor SwetlofFs article, reminds us. He declares
himself in accord with the Russian Professor on the following points :
In order to constitute a dogma of the Church it is necessary (1) that
it should have been taught by Jesus Christ Himself; (2) that it must
be recognized by all Churches, every ivJiere and always, as having been
so taught by Him ; (3) that it can only be defined as obligatory by an
Oecumenical Council under those conditions. And he adds, (4) that
the doctrinal decisions of Councils not universally acknowledged as
Oecumenical, and those of particular Churches, need not be accepted
by the members of the Church at large, because the right to make
dogmatic definitions rests with the Universal Church alone, and with
her only under the conditions previously mentioned. The whole
discussion is well worthy of study, and calculated to further that
better understanding among the members of the various Christian
Churches, which the lievue Internationale was instituted to promote.

POSITION OF FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME. 39

His Name implies, is the source of all being, divine or
created. The Son is the Revelation, or Manifestation, of
the Father, and through Him alone is the Father discerned.
He took man's nature in order to redeem man from the
deep corruption into which he had fallen, to purify him
from the stains of sin, and to bring him to the state of
perfection for which God had designed him. To the
Divine Spirit (-jrvevpa, as breathed by God) belongs the
task of carrying on the work of redemption, purification,
and growth in grace in the heart of the individual. And
this He does by imparting the perfected humanity of Jesus
Christ to the believing spirit. In consequence of the
common possession, by the members of Christ's Church, of
this perfected humanity, through the operation of the Holy
Spirit, a peculiar people has been called out of the world,
enjoying the privileges of the forgiveness of sins, and the
hope of eternal life in the world to come, knit together in
the confession of a common faith, and bound to the recog
nition of the facts that they have become one Body and
one Spirit in Christ, and that it is their duty to strive
after the perfection to which they have been called.1 This,
and none other than this, is the faith which has been
proclaimed " ubique, semper, et ab omnibus " by the

1 Dean Stanley, in his early years, and during the progress of the
Tract movement in Oxford, says (Life i. 210) : " Newman, &c., assert
that the main point, and one which is to be dwelt upon and most
earnestly embraced, is that God is Three, and yet One. Arnold, &c.,
that the main point is that God sent His Son to deliver us, His Spirit
to sanctify us, and that, incidentally, this involves much that is
unintelligible and mysterious as to the relations of the Persons. The
Apostles' Creed is Arnold's view of Christianity ; the Athanasian,
Newman's." But surely there is no opposition between the Apostles'
and Athanasian Creeds, properly understood. We may not divorce
the acceptance of dogma from practical Christianity. Neither may
we regard the existence of the Trinity as an "incidental" phase of
our belief. The facts of the Divine existence are the necessary source
of all Christian practice.

40 THE CREED.

Church. This is the faith which it will be the endeavour
of these pages to unfold, as it has been taught from the
beginning by those who were " eye-witnesses and ministers
of the word."1 One point further must be mentioned in
regard to the faith which has been discussed above. The
faith of which we have been speaking is not merely an
intellectual, but a practical, principle. It is described by
St. Paul as "faith which worketh by love.2 It is, first and
foremost, dependence on trust in a Person. And it issues in
the assimilation of the mind and will of the individual with
those of the Incarnate Lord. When the late Mr. Matthew
Arnold declared that " three-fourths of religion relates to
conduct," he was not far from the truth. A genuine
intellectual acceptance of the facts revealed to mankind in
Jesus Christ must of necessity produce a conformity to the
Divine Mind and Purpose.3

1 Luke i. 2. Some useful thoughts on the subject on which this
chapter treats will be found in The Historic Faith, by the Bishop of
Durham, chapters i. and ii. But what the Bishop says of the
Apostles' Creed I should be inclined, I confess, to say of the Niceue,
as the more complete and more universally recognized document.

2 Gal. v. 6 ; cf. vi. 15.

3 See also pp. 21, 25.
Note on page 22.

Hooker (Ecd. Pot., III. viii. 4) has some weighty words on this
point. "A number there are who think they cannot admire as they
ought the power and authority of the Word of God, if in things
divine they should attribute any force to man's reason. For which
cause they never use reason so willingly as to disgrace reason. . . . By
these and like disputes an opinion hath spread itself very far in the
world, as if the way to be ripe in faith were to be raw in wit and
judgment ; as if Reason were an enemy unto Religion, childish
Simplicity the mother of ghostly and divine Wisdom." The whole
passage is well worth reading. Nor is it quite superfluous to bear in
mind that the same author who wrote " the natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God " (1 Cor. ii. 14) wrote also (xiv. 20)
"in sentiments (typeaiv) be men of full age (reXeioi)."

CHAPTER IL

THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF IN GOD

fT^HE belief in God is antecedent to all religion whatsoever,
-L as the word religion is generally understood. For, if
religion be that which binds us, or that by which we are
bound to pay respect and obedience to a being above and
outside of us, it will be necessary for us to have formed
some idea beforehand of the nature of the being to which
that respect and obedience is due. Belief in God is also
antecedent to, and in its origin at least independent of,
revelation itself. For revelation is the unveiling to man
of the nature of God, and of His relations to His creatures.
There can be no revelation except there be (1) something to
reveal, and (2) someone to reveal it. Thus, before we can
conceive of a revelation of God's Will, we must have formed
some conception to ourselves — even though it be an in
adequate one — of the existence and nature of the Being
Whose Will is to be revealed to us. The function of
revelation, therefore, is not to reveal to us that God
exists. That is a belief we must entertain before any
revelation of His Being is possible. The function of
revelation is to declare to us how He exists — to convey to
us such information in regard to His nature and attributes
as may be necessary to guide us in our conduct towards
Him. We have first, therefore, to discuss the a priori

42 THB ORBED.

grounds on which we are convinced of the existence of
God ; then to learn, from revelation, what are His essential
attributes so far as human reason is able to conceive of
them; and, lastly, to inquire what are the relations in
which He stands to us, and we to Him. The first of these
questions will be discussed in the present chapter. The two
latter will be dealt with when we treat of the first Person
in the Blessed Trinity.

The idea of God may be regarded as a necessary
elementary conception residing in the human mind. For
it is universal among all races of mankind in every age and
in every condition of human life.1 Even the infant, in the
earliest stages of the dawning development of reason, finds
no difficulty in grasping the idea of a being to whom awe
and submission are due. There are two classes of persons
who may seem to form an exception to this no doubt
sweeping assertion. But, upon examination, they will be

1 " In fact, if we take all the languages of the present day, we find
a universal assent of all mankind to the belief that such a Being does
exist. Take the French, the German, the English, or any other
language, and ask yourselves how you are to account for the origin of
those terms which relate to the Deity, unless there is the universal
assent of all the nations speaking those languages to the idea that
there is a Supreme Being." Mr. W. Griffith, in the discussion on the
paper mentioned below, p. 44. "No age so distant, no country so
remote, no people so barbarous, but gives a sufficient testimony to this
truth. When the Roman eagle flew over most parts of the habitable
world, they met with atheism nowhere ; but, rather, by their miscellany
of deities at Rome, which grew with their victories, they shewed no
nation was without its God. And, since the later art of navigation
improved hath discovered another part of the world, with which no
former commerce hath been known, although the customs of the
people be much different, and their manner of religion hold small
correspondency with any in these parts of the world professed, yet in
this all agree, that some religious observances they retain, and a
Divinity they acknowledge." PEARSON, On the Creed, p. 21 ; original
edition. See also p. 46.

THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF IN GOD. 43

found to prove the rule. The first class comprises all those
savage tribes in which human degradation is so complete
that they can hardly be said to have any abstract ideas at
all. The other is found at the opposite pole of human
society, among those in whom thought is so refined and
elaborated that they are disposed to question every con
ception with which they are confronted. The first case
need give us little trouble. If no conception of God is to
be found among the savage tribes to which reference has
been made, it is not because they never had such con
ceptions, but because, from the state of degradation to
which they are reduced, they have lost all capacity for
forming them. In regard to the second case, it may very
reasonably be contended that the denial of God's existence
is not absolute, but relative. That is to say, it consists
rather in a denial of certain propositions which have been
affirmed concerning God, than a denial of that Ultimate
Force which lies outside, and yet is manifested in, all
phenomena.1 Nor is this sceptical attitude of the mind
indefensible in every respect. Many Christian teachers,
it must be admitted, have disregarded the caution which
the Word of God itself has given against rash assertions in
regard to His Essence. They have forgotten that "He is
above and we upon earth," and that, therefore, concerning
Him it were well that our "words" should be "few."2

1 The late Mr. BRADLAUGH'S volume, Is there a God ? is a treatise
of this sort. It is largely concerned with certain arguments by which
the Being of God has been supposed to be established, and certain
affirmations concerning His Being to which exception may not
unreasonably be taken.

* " Dangerous were it for the feeble brain of man to wade far into
the doings of the Most High ; Whom, although to know be life, and
joy to make mention of His Name ; yet our soundest knowledge is co
know that we know Him not as indeed He is, neither can know Him ;
and our safest eloquence concerning Him is our silence, when we

44 THE ORBED.

They have ventured, as the late Mr. Matthew Arnold was
never weary of saying, to speak as freely of God and of
His doings as though He were "a man in the next street."1
And much of the Agnosticism of the day is the result of
sheer weariness of mind, itself the result of a reaction from
inadequate, or incorrect, or even unworthy, conceptions of
God.2 Such one-sided conceptions were very early im
ported into the theology of the Christian Church, as
Platonists, Stoics, Epicureans, Polytheists, and the members
of other religious and philosophical schools pressed into
her pale. The Roman conception of a world-ruler, again,
was not without its place in framing theories of God's
Being and doings, which have wrought a good deal of
mischief among Christians. We shall never get rid of the
Agnosticism of which we complain, until we have carefully
revised our imperfect a priori ideas of God by the light of
the revelation which He has given of Himself. The Being

confess, without confession, that His glory is inexplicable, His
greatness above our capacity and reach. He is above, and we upon
earth ; therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and few."
HOOKER, Eccl. Polity, I. ii. 2.

1 A few lines are added from Dr. MARTINEATJ'S Preface to A Study
of Religion, which support an opinion held, and frequently expressed,
by the writer of the present book, long before he met with them.
"For much of the Agnosticism of the age the Gnosticism of
theologians is . undeniably responsible. They have inconsiderately
overstrained the language of religion till its meaning breaks, and the
coherent thinker easily picks up its ruins to show that they can
contain nothing." His protest, which follows, against calling God
"by names of highest abstraction, such as 'the Absolute,'" was also
made by the writer, in a paper read before the Victoria Institute in
February, 1883. To call God "the great I Am," if intended, as
Dr. Martineau says, " for the very purpose of placing Him beyond
comparison," might be open to objection. But, as will be seen below,
the idea thus expressed, instead of severing God from created things,
represents Him as the ever- flowing fountain of all life.

2 For an explanation of the term Agnosticism, see p. 52.

THE GROUNDS OP OUR BELIEF IN GOD. 45

of God, though a fact to which the human consciousness
points as at the root of all being or thought, is nevertheless
one of which our conceptions are necessarily so inadequate,
that some revelation which transcends our elementary
conceptions on the point is absolutely necessary. And
our approximations to the revealed idea of God have not,
as yet, been a sufficient guide for conduct. It is necessary
that we should carry them a good deal further.

A brief sketch of the various conceptions which have
been entertained of God, apart from Christianity, will
therefore be useful in enabling us to guard against the
many perversions of the true Christian doctrine on this
head which are still prevalent amongst us. In dealing with
the origin of the idea of God itself in the human mind, we
shall venture to represent it as an innate idea, very much
strengthened, however, by its correspondence with the
results of observation. It is thus that St. Paul treats it.1
That which we are able to know about God is manifest in
us, for it has been manifested by God. And this conviction
is reinforced by the evidence of the senses, as interpreted
by the intellect. We may clearly discern2 the invisible
Being of God, His everlasting power and Divinity, through
the medium of the visible universe ; and there is no excuse
for us if we fail to do so.3 Thus the idea of God presented
itself to the mind of primitive man as a mighty Force
underlying and controlling phenomena.4 And as conscience

1 Rom. i. 19, 20. 2 Ka0o/>aw.

3 Archdeacon Norris, in the Appendix to his Eudiments of Theology
(pp. 241-243), cites two remarkable passages, the first, and most
striking, from the Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians
(chap, xx.), and the other from Athanasius (Contra Gentes, 38) on the
testimony of Nature to God. Both these writers lay stress on the
order and harmony of creation.

4 " Instead of conceiving of God as a Being above and outside the
universe, the transcendent Deity of the past, men now think of Him

46 THE CREED.

is doubtless a Divinely-implanted instinct,1 that mighty
Force was also regarded as impelling man towards good.2
This distinctly elevating conception of God was exchanged
for one of a less ennobling character when visible objects or
invisible powers, or both, were deified ; and it became still
more degraded and degrading when these powers were sup
posed to be independent or conflicting, and when the wor
shipper was driven to endeavours to propitiate one or other
of them in case they were unfriendly. The immoral
tendencies of all these deifications of the powers of Nature
need not be insisted upon ; they are obvious enough. And

as the immanent and living centre of Force, the battery, so to speak
with reverence, whence proceed all the forces of the universe. In a
word, we no longer speak of laws as acting on matter from without,
as Overcoming its inertia, and directing it in the course it shall take.
We now speak of forces acting from within, and evolving one form
out of another by some biological law of growth which we call evolu
tion. Hence it is that our conception of God has been profoundly
modified by the altered attitude in which we regard the universe."
HEARD, Old and New Theology, p. 57. I desire to record the obliga
tions I am under to this thoughtful and original writer. The sentence
above quoted contains the master-key to the religious difficulties of
our time. We have "profoundly modified" our "conception of
God " ; but we have not yet re-stated all the problems of theology in
the terms of that modified conception. " Our conception of salvation
will be modified by our conception of God and of His character."
Ibid., p. 156.

1 For the demonstration of this the reader must be referred to the
closely-reasoned arguments of Dr. Martineau, A Study of Religion,
Book II., chap, ii., sec. 4.

2 This idea of God is expressed by the Semitic conception of God
as Force (El, Elohim), according to the most generally accepted
meaning of the word. Dr. Max Miillcr has shown that the idea
of brilliancy or beauty was most clearly present to the Aryan races.
See his Hibbert Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion,
p. 214. But this was a lower idea of God altogether, and led the way
naturally, it would seem, to the degrading conceptions of God in
volved in polytheism. The assertion that man originally conceived
of God as a fetish, that this gross and unworthy idea of Him gradually

THE GROUNDS OP OUR BELIEF IN GOD. 47

the tremendous indictment of St. Paul1 will be found
amplified in the vehement, and by no means ineffective,
attacks made by many of the early Christian apologists on
the various deities of the heathen Pantheon.2

As society progressed, and thought expanded, philosophic
conceptions of God began to take the place of popular
ones. These, again, took a form more or less inconsistent
with the true character of God, as set forth in revelation.
The god of Epicurus, for instance, was a being who, after
he had called all things into being, dissociated himself from
them, and left them to shift for themselves. This system is
known as Transcendentalism, from its belief in a god who
transcends Nature, whether in regard to space, time, or
worth and excellence.3 The god of the Stoics, instead
of being discernible in Nature, and guiding and controlling
her operations, became identified with Nature. This system is
known as Pantheism,4 and its grave moral defect is to be

became refined into polytheism, and ultimately sublimated into mono
theism, is one which (1) cannot be proved, and (2) is degrading to
humanity. In regard to (1) it is sufficient to say that strong evidence
has been adduced in favour of the belief that the original creed of
mankind was monotheistic ; while in support of (2) it may be observed
that the assertion depends upon the assumption that man was
originally no more than a highly-developed ape, and that the state
ments in the first chapter of Genesis concerning all things that were
made being "very good," and concerning man having been originally
made in the Image of God, are entirely without foundation. It
should be remembered that, however much evidence there may be
for evolution in the sense of development according to plan in
creation, the theory of Evolution by Natural Selection can by no
means be regarded as established. At least, the theory must not
be so pressed as to exclude the operation of influences beyond the
sphere of material forces. l Rom. i. 22-32.

2 As by Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Tertullian, Minucius
Felix, and other early writers.

3 MAETINEAU, A Study of Religion, II. 149.

4 In MARTINEAU'S A Study of Religion, Book III., chap, i., the
student will find a masterly account of the Pantheistic system..

48 THE CREED.

found in the fact that evil becomes, equally with good, a
part of the Divine Nature and of the working of the Divine
Mind. Nor is it possible, on the Pantheistic theory, ulti
mately to escape the Stoic Ei/zap/xevT/, which reduces all
events to links in an iron chain of resistless destiny. If we
turn to the East we find the pure doctrines of Brahminism
degenerating into a deification of the powers of Nature
as childish and as gross as that of any other polytheistic
system. In the religion of Buddha we discover a doctrine
which reduces God to a nonentity, and man's perfection to a
nirvana which, if not theoretically, is practically annihila
tion.1 Thence arises a morality which is of little use to the
man himself, and of none whatever to the world at large.
Of all the philosophic theories concerning God, the most
satisfactory is that of Plato, with whom God is essential
existence and essential goodness.2 Its chief defect is that
it has tended to exclude matter from all connection with
the Divine Being, regarding it as the opposite pole of
existence, and, therefore, as the source of all evil. On
the other hand, Roman philosophy gave prominence to the
idea of God as a righteous ruler, who demands submission
to His wise and salutary laws ; and the sense of duty held a
primary place in its system.3

The Hebrew conception of God is peculiar to revealed
religion. It seems to have been handed down from the
very earliest times, to have acquired additional definiteness
in the creed of Abraham, and to have been formulated with

1 This statement will be disputed at least as far as actual annihila
tion is concerned ; but it is very difficult in practice for the individual
Buddhist to realize the nice distinctions by which ultra-refined
thinkers are trying to save the credit of his system.

2 In his Republic, vi. 19, he speaks of God as beyond all Essence,
but as being the Absolute Good.

3 See CICERO, De Nat. D.t iii. 3 ; and Tusc. Disp., 27.

THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF IN GOD. 49

great distinctness by Moses.1 Starting with the Semitic
conception of God as Force, the law of Moses reveals God,
not only as a righteous ruler — "a God of faithfulness, and
without iniquity"2 — but as at once just and forbearing;
severe, yet long-suffering; stern to avenge, yet ready to
forgive.3 He is the Creator of all that is.4 Matter, as well
as spirit, are the work of His Hands; and therefore the
former is in no sense whatever the source of evil; but all
things existing are very good in themselves,5 and are only
bad in the case of those who use them badly. Moreover,
God, as the fountain of life, is Himself Life. He is called
the Living God, the Eternally Self-Existent, the unique
I AM.6 But as yet He is not represented to us as the source
of all moral perfection in His creatures. They are com
manded to obey Him, and are admonished that they can
only find their happiness in doing so. But the Gospel
expansion of this conception of God into one which regards
Him as the fountain of all goodness, has not yet been
revealed. God, to the Jew, is the power which orders
all visible things, the Great King who governs all, the
source of all life, the enemy of all injustice and wrong — of
all evil, in fact. Not until Christ came was it made known
that the chief of all His attributes is Love.

We will postpone the consideration of the Christian
conception of God till the next chapter. But it is
necessary to repeat here that this conception has been

1 Into the Higher Criticism of the Hebrew history there is no
need to enter. The historical statements in the Hebrew Scriptures
must, for our purpose, be accepted as they stand — at least, as far as
their main general features are concerned, until there is a far wider
consensus of opinion on the question, among men of various schools,
than there is at present.

2 Deut. xxxii. 4. See p. 46.

3 Exod. xx. 5, 6 ; xxxiv. 14. Deut. iv. 24. Of. Exod. xxxiv. 7.
Deut. vii. 9, 10. 4 Gen. i. 1. 5 Gen. i. 31.

6 Exod. iii. 14 ; Deut. v. 26.

50 THE CREED.

very inadequately apprehended by the Christian community,
even down to the present time. The Christian revelation
was so profoundly original that man found himself, at first,
unable to understand it aright. Hence the vast crop of
heresies which arose as soon as Christianity began to
attract public attention; and hence, too, the perversions
of the Christian idea which invaded, and have obtained
wide acceptance in, the Christian Church. Early Greek
theologians reflected the Christian doctrine of God more
fully than any other school of theology which has, as yet,
arisen in the Christian Church. But even the Alexandrian
school itself was coloured with Platonism,1 and the later
Greek theology tended more and more to lose itself in mere
speculation. Latin theology, on the other hand, reflected
the practical conception of God which had dominated
Latin philosophy; and mediaeval, and even modern,
theology in the West has been somewhat prone to regard
God — to borrow, though in a shape somewhat modified,
Mr. Matthew Arnold's felicitous phrase — as a kind of
" magnified and non-natural " Roman Emperor. The doctrine
of the Divine indwelling, which, as we shall see hereafter,
is the most prominent doctrine of the Gospel, gives way, to
a certain extent, among Western theologians, to the doctrine
of the Divine government of the world; and the stress
laid on the Divine identification with man, which took place
at the Incarnation, has, by degrees, been transferred to the
necessary reparation, made in human shape, to the outraged
dignity of the ruler, and the outraged majesty of law.2

1 Thus Justin Martyr (Dial. c. Try ph. chap, iv.) cites the Platonic
definition of God, and Athanasius (Contra Gfentes, chap. 2) cites the
same definition (see Plato, Republic, vi. 19) almost word for word.

2 This is by no means invariably the case. But while the Greek
conception of God and the scheme of salvation is seldom lost sight of
by Greek theologians, the Latin conception seems to waver con
tinually between the higher and the lower one.

THE GROUNDS OP OUR BELIEF IN GOD. 61

The impulse given by the Reformation to freedom of
thought led to a renewal of speculation, especially in
Germany. A strong reaction took place against the foreign
colouring which had insensibly been imparted to Christian
ideas by their contact with heathen thought. The English
Deism of the eighteenth century differed, it is true, little
from the Deism of Epicurus. But from the time of
Spinoza onward we are confronted with practically a new
conception of God — that which regards Him as simple
Infinity.1 Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, regards
God as One Who is to be conceived of as the "original
Being" (ens originalium), and, so far as it has nothing
above it, the highest Being (ens summum).2 Fichte tells
us that existence implies origin, and that God is beyond
origin. Schelling regards God as neither real nor ideal,
neither thought nor being. And thus we are gradually
led to the conclusions of modern Agnosticism. It is from
the conception of God, formulated by German metaphysics,
as "the Infinite," " the Absolute," " the Unconditioned"—

1 God, according to Spinoza, is "the being absolutely infinite — i.e.
the substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses
an infinite and eternal essence." Ethics, Part I., Def. 6. But he
regarded the Divine Mind, which had in it the conception of all
things antecedent to their existence, as the precise opposite of a
human mind, in which the perception of things is consequent on their
existence. Thus there was nothing, in his view, in common between
the two. See Ethics, Part I., Def. 17, Scholium.

2 Dr. Max Mailer's translation, p. 498. Kant is eminently un
satisfactory here. Not only does he say that his definition does not
involve a determination of the relation of this Being to other beings,
and therefore ' ' leaves us in perfect ignorance as to the existence of a
Being of such superlative excellence," but he adds (p. 499) that "the
concept of God, in its transcendental sense," is " the concept of the
highest reality as one, simple, all-sufficient, eternal, et caetera." It is
hardly possible to characterize with sufficient severity this "bottom
less perjury of an et caetera"— this slipshod treatment of the greatest
and most fundamental of all truths.

52 THB CREED.

a conception accepted by Dean Mansel in his celebrated
Bampton Lectures — that Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his
First Principles, has deduced the conclusion that God is
unknowable, and must, therefore, be dismissed from our
thoughts as a Being of Whom no conceptions whatever are
possible.1 This Creed has received the name of Agnosticism,
from its confession of ignorance concerning the Being of
God.

As Mr. Spencer shews, in the course of the same argument,
that Force, Matter, Space, Time, Individual Existence, &c.,
are equally "unthinkable" with God, it may be a question
whether the " unthinkability " of abstract ideas does not
point rather to some inherent weakness in the science of
metaphysics, which, as yet, it has never been able to
overcome, than to our absolute incapacity to know anything
about God. But however this may be, one thing must
be regarded as certain — that this attempt to identify
God with one or more of our own abstract conceptions
of Him, is one which cannot possibly be accepted. The
God "Whom the Scriptures reveal to us is no mere meta
physical abstraction, but a Living Being, an Active Force,
an Unceasing Energy. He is not " the Absolute," for that
term indicates one who is incapable of relation, whereas we
can only conceive of God through His relation to us. He
is not "the Infinite," because our conception of Infinity
must include evil as well as good; and with evil He has

1 See these and other authorities quoted in the paper mentioned
above (p. 44), on the question, "Is it possible to know God?" It
is unnecessary to puzzle the non-metaphysical reader with Hegel's
theories about the identity of Being and non-Being, recalling as
they do the paradoxes of the heretic Basilides in the second
century, who described God as absolute non-existence, on the
ground that all idea of Being involved also the idea of limitation.
See HIPPOLYTUS, Refutation of all Heresies, Book VII., chaps,
vii., ix.

THE GROUNDS OP OUR BELIEF IN GOD. 53

not, and cannot have, anything in common. He is not the
" Unconditioned," because the revealed doctrine concerning
Him describes His essential Nature as including certain
attributes which of necessity condition His Action, for He
is represented as essentially Love, Goodness, Justice,
Wisdom, and Truth.1

We may not be able to penetrate the ultimate secret
of the Being of God. There is a sense in which all
Christians are Agnostics. None of us pretends that he
can possibly know God, as He is in Himself. Revealed
religion expressly teaches the contrary. "Canst thou by
searching find out God ? " says the book of Job.2 " No man
hath seen God at any time," says St. John ; 3 and he implies
that it was necessary that "He that is of God" should
assume human flesh, in order to reveal Him to mankind.
" No man hath seen, or can see," God, says St. Paul, because
He dwells in the "light unapproachable."* Nor need this
incapacity to know God as He is in Himself, occasion us

1 I must refer all those who may desire to pursue this argument
further to the paper mentioned above, as well as to a more popular
form of the argument, published at the request of the Institute, under
the title, Is there a God? It is the object of the present volume to
present conclusions rather than to follow the processes by which they
are reached, and yet at the same time to make the reader acquainted
with the present state of the controversy concerning the Being of God.

2 Job xi. 7. Cf. xxxvi. 26 ; xxxvii. 23.

3 John i. 18. Cf. vi. 46 ; Exodus xxxiii. 20.

4 1 Tim. vi. 16. See also i. 17, and Rom. xi. 33, 34. There is a
remarkable passage in the opening of a Dialogue concerning the Holy
Trinity, ascribed by some to Theodoret, which illustrates this Agnostic
element in Christianity. The Anomoean says to the Orthodox believer,
"Do you know God?" "Yes," replies the Orthodox believer. The
dialogue continues, " A. Do you know Him as He knows Himself ?
0. No. A. Then you do not know Him ? 0. I know Him as it is
possible for one in the nature of man to know Him. A. Then men
know Him in one way and He knows Himself in another way ?
0. Certainly." So Athanasius (De Deer. Syn. Nic. chap, ix.) speaks
of God as immaterial and without body (forXos /ecu' daw/uaTos), but does
not proceed further to define His nature. Cf. chap, xxii., where he

54 THE CREED.

any difficulty ; for the incapacity extends to everything
that is to be known. Space, time, matter, motion, force,
have been shown by Mr. Spencer, as we have seen, to be
ultimately unthinkable. Even our own personality, when
we seek to explain it, is quite as inscrutable and inex
plicable to ourselves as the Being of God. Indeed all
being, of whatever kind, seems in the end to run up into
the unseen, and there to be lost to our mental vision. We
are enveloped in an atmosphere of mystery, in which
all ultimate existence, and all our ideas in reference to
it, appear to be shrouded, and which the utmost efforts of
our reason fail to penetrate. Are we, then, to abandon all
attempts to think upon such subjects'? Certainly not. We
act, not on ultimate scientific ideas, but on such conceptions
of them as we are able to form for practical purposes ; l and

says that the Essence of God cannot be comprehended. Origen tells
us in his Principia (II., i.) that God is "simplex intellectualis
natura," "ac fons ex quo initium totius intellectualis naturae vel
mentis est." But in his Homilies on St. John's Gospel (xiii. 23), he
inclines to the opinion that God is said to be Spirit because He
breathes into us the breath of a higher life than that which we have
by Nature. He gives some curious definitions of God in the beginning
of his Homilies on the Psalms, from Henophilus the Stoic. Of. also
St. Gregory of Nazianzus in his " Hymn to God," " Thou alone art
unknown (&yvu<rTos), since Thou gavest birth to all things that are
conceived of (yoelrcu)."

1 ' ' Our ideas are not ' specula tively false, ' because they are specu-
latively inadequate. All kno \vledge consists of successive approxima
tions to the truth. "We are all of us familiar with calculations based
on the ratio of a diameter of a circle to its circumference, and on the
extraction of the roots of numbers which are not complete squares.
Carried on to as many places of decimals as the nicety of the
operation requires, the most valuable practical results are obtained
from premises which are speculatively defective. Similarly, in infinite
series, we take as many terms as are needed for our purpose, and
neglect the remainder as practically of no importance." Is it Possible
to Know God, pp. 119, 120. Basil, in his Epistles (234, 235),
anticipates this argument. He emphatically denies that we must
be content to be altogether ignorant of God, because we cannot
comprehend His Essence.

THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF IN GOD. 55

our contention is, that however little we may know of God,
we know enough to teach us our duty to Him. We may
not know enough of Him to satisfy our curiosity ; but we
know — or, at least, can know — quite enough to enable us to
love Him and serve Him with all our hearts.1

I. What do we know of God ? That is the next question
to be asked. What evidence have we for His existence?
Our first argument must be drawn from the phenomena of
nature. These phenomena, by the abundant evidence they
display of design, point unmistakably to a Creator. It is
true that this argument is supposed now to be discredited.
We are told2 that Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason,
has disposed of the teleological argument for the Being of
God. But we shall find, on consulting his pages, that he is
very far from having done anything of the kind. He has
simply endeavoured to demonstrate the futility of this argu
ment by considerations drawn from the practical unthink-

1 Many (see Walks in the Regions of Science and Faith, p. 227)
have cast away their faith in God, to the ruin of their happiness, and
in spite of the deepest yearnings of their souls, in obedience to a
supposed logical necessity. Yet there is no greater fallacy than to
imagine that there is any real force in mere logical reductiones ad
absurdum of the arguments for the Being of God. As has been shown
above, everything tliat is can be reduced, by pseudo- metaphysical
methods, to a logical absurdity. E pur si muove! And yet "we
live, move, and have our being." The Being of God is a practical
question, to be decided on practical grounds. It cannot be really a
question of logic at all ; for if the proposition that God is can be
shown to be absurd, the proposition that God does not exist may
easily be proved to be a thousandfold more absurd. No man has
any right to do violence to a sacred and universal inner instinct
on grounds like these ; and the nature which such a man outrages
will be sure to have its revenge. As Bacon remarks (Essay on
Atheism], "A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to Atheism;
but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. "

2 HEARD, Old and New Theology, p. 55.

56 THE CREED.

ability of space and time and of visible phenomena in
general, analogous to those which Mr. Herbert Spencer has
alleged in support of the unknowableness of God. We
may, therefore, fearlessly point to the innumerable evidences
of Design in Creation as indisputable evidence of the work
ing of a Divine Creative Mind.1

II. Our second argument is drawn from the existence of
Force. Mr. Herbert Spencer has shown that every possible
definition of Force is open to objection. Nevertheless,
unless we are to reject the evidence of our senses, the
existence of Force must be regarded as a demonstrated

1 For a masterly refutation of Kant, and a re-statement of the
scientific argument on grounds more in accordance with the stand
point of modern scientific research than will be found in such a book
as PALEY'S Natural Theology, or the celebrated Bridgewater Treatises,
see MARTINEAU, A Study of Religion, Book II., chap. i. It is true
that JOHN STUART MILL ( Three Essays, p. 116) can see nothing more in
this argument from design than a demonstration of the existence of a
being of limited capacities struggling with an intractable material.
But our belief in God does not rest on the argument from design
alone ; and, when we have arrived by it at the belief in a Creator of
the Universe, we shall be able to reinforce it by other considerations
from which we may be able to estimate His character and power. As
an illustration of the argument from design, it will be sufficient here to
introduce one instance among hundreds of thousands — that of the eye.
We find in it (1) a curtain, exquisitely sensitive to light, and auto
matically regulating the passage of the rays, so as to prevent the
intrusion of too large an amount of light ; (2) a power of self-
adjustment to near and far objects, (a) altering the convexity of
the lens, and (&) lengthening the instrument which conveys the
light ; and (3) the retina, or screen for the reception of the picture,
fixed at precisely the place where alone such picture could be formed.
The testimony of a practical and powerful mind like that of Napoleon
may, perhaps, carry as much weight to the souls of struggling men
and women as the refinements of metaphysicians, or the difficulties
suggested by critics. "That is all very well, gentlemen," said
Napoleon to some objections of this kind; "but who made all
these?" And he pointed as he spoke to the stars shining in the
heavens.

THE GROUNDS OP OUR BELIEF IN GOD. 57

fact.1 But if we cannot define Force, how can we explain
what we mean by HI We must have recourse to one of
those approximations so often employed with practical effect
in mathematical science. What Force is, in itself, we can
not say; we can only conceive of it as an effect of Will.
But ivhat will ? Whose will 1 The only answer which can
in any way satisfy the reason is, the Will of the Being to
Whose operations we have seen ground for ascribing the
existence of phenomena. Thus, on the one hand, we
discern, in the world around us, the operation of a directing
Mind ; on the other, we have evidence of the activity of a
controlling Will. We thus advance another step in the
determination of the nature of that Unseen Power, to which
we give the name of God.2

III. Our next step will naturally be to endeavour to ascertain

1 See, in regard to the relation of phenomena to Knowledge,
MARTINEAU, A Study of Religion, chap. iv. One point, however,
which has been touched upon above, p. 43, does not seem to have
had sufficient attention paid to it by metaphysicians, namely, the
distinction between the intuitions and perceptions of the individual
and of mankind at large. If it be impossible to rely implicitly on
the former, it would clearly, on the other hand, be unfair summarily
to reject the latter. No rational person could possibly dismiss as
unworthy of attention the convictions— even though they may
fairly be supposed to rest upon intuition — of a large majority of
mankind. Nor could anyone in his senses reject the overwhelming
evidence, inductive and deductive, for the existence of such a thing
as Force.

2 "On the whole, what the pilot is in the ship, the driver in the
chariot, the leader in the dance " (or "the conductor in the chorus "),
"what law is in the city, the general in the camp, that God is in the
world." AHISTOTLE, De Mund., 6, sec. 34 [cited by Pearson in the
original, p. 21]. And again (Ibid., sec. 2), " It is an ancient saying,
a hereditary doctrine among all men, that all things are of God, and
by God all things hold together." The language here, in the original,
is so closely similar to that of Col. i. 16, that it suggests the idea
that the latter is but an adaptation of the former, and an application
of it to Christ.

58 THE CREED.

the character of this Will, as revealed in natural phenomena.
In other words, we shall inquire into the purpose for which
the world may presumably be supposed to have been created.
There are two schools of opinion in regard to the general
relation of creation to the happiness of created beings. The
pessimist philosopher insists that misery is the result of
creation.1 The opposite, or optimist, school contends that
misery is simply the result of disobedience or opposition to
God's Will. It argues that life is, in the main, enjoyment;
and that, therefore, the purpose of creation is happiness.
It argues that "somehow good will be the final goal of ill."2
Even death may not be so terrible an evil as is supposed.
The sum of happiness in animal life is surely far greater
than any anguish that can be supposed to attend its close.
And where, as in the case of human beings,3 there appears

1 Schopenhauer is the most notable modern example of the pessi
mist school. To him is attributed the saying that there can only be
one thing worse than yesterday, namely to-day, and only one thing
worse than to-day, namely to-morrow.

3 TENNYSON, In Memoriam, 54.

3 The argument for a future life need not, of necessity, be confined
to human beings. The idea of the Indian who believed that in the
next world "his dog would bear him company" has been received
with a smile by most European thinkers. But there is really no
ground whatever for the assumption that the immortality of animals
is an absurdity. Indeed, the whole argument in BUTLER'S Analogy ,
Part I. chap, i., in which he shows that death, though the dissolution,
is by no means demonstrably the destruction of living powers, goes a
long way in the opposite direction. It is to be hoped, however, that
those who read this note will not jump to the conclusion that the
author maintains the proposition that animals are immortal. This
is not the case. It is necessary, however, unfortunately, to be on
one's guard against a large class of persons who seem to be incapable
of seeing any difference between the assertion that a thing is possible,
or that we have no right to assume that it is impossible, and the
assertion that it is absolutely certain, and that it were heresy or
imbecility to deny it. Mr. Lecky, in his Map of Life, p. 75,
emphatically pronounces in favour of the possession by animals of
" some measure both of reason and of the moral sense."

THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF IN GOD. 59

to be reasonable ground for the belief in a future life, there
is also excellent reason to believe that death is not an evil
at all, but rather the contrary. The desire for life, so deeply
implanted in man that some sceptical philosophers have
gone so far as to attribute to it the belief in immortality,
is altogether inconsistent with the pessimistic theory. The
intensity of that desire is proved by the way in which the
vast majority of men cling to life, even under the most
adverse circumstances. But, if the belief in a future life be
conceded, the pessimistic theory is exploded, for belief in
a future life opens up the most illimitable prospects for
humanity. And Bishop Butler has shown, in the first part
of his Analogy, not only that there is no reason against
such a belief, but that the evidence of a Divine plan in
the government of the visible universe seems to postulate
very decisively a more extended sphere for that government
than the present world affords, and that human beings in
this world are being trained here for a wider sphere of
usefulness elsewhere.1 Thus we are brought to the con
clusions (1) that, even in the present life, it seems probable
that the Purpose of God is, on the whole, to promote the
happiness of His creatures; and (2) that a careful review
of the conditions of existence here may be said to point
very decidedly to the working of laws calculated to produce
a far larger share of happiness to human beings hereafter.
IV. Our next proof is drawn from the phenomena of con
science. That extraordinary duplex action of the mind,2 in
which the individual sits in judgment upon himself, and pro
nounces sentence upon himself according to a code of laws

1 See Analogy , Part L, chap. iii.

2 The word conscience itself (Gr. avvdSi/jffi.s, Lat. conscientia) bears
witness to this duplex action. Dr. Martineau's masterly distinction
between conscience and perception will be useful to the student. The
latter introduces us to " another than ourselves, that gives us what
we feel"; the former introduces us to "a Higher than ourselves,
that gives us what we feel.;' A Study of Religion, ii. 28,

60 THE CREED.

which appears ultimately to have been derived from some
external source, seems unquestionably to point not only to
a moral standard existing outside of the individual, but to
a communication of its laws, by means of some unknown
force, to his inmost spirit. But Force, as we have seen, is
the expression of Will. We have, therefore, foundation
for the belief that a Will is acting in Nature according to
moral laws. There are irresistible grounds for the conclu
sion that moral and physical laws are due to the operation
of the same Will, directed toward the attainment of the
same Purpose.

We are thus advanced another step in our progress
toward the determination of what may be known of God.
The Mind and Will at work beneath the outward forms
of things reveals itself to us not only as Power, but as
Goodness. Ever at work to promote the welfare of man
kind in things external to us, it is equally at work within
us, prompting us to deny self, and reach the standard of
righteousness in our conduct, and causing us uneasiness
when we have failed to do so. It is true that there are
those who have denied that conscience is, in any sense,
innate ; that it can be traced to an ideal standard of right
and wrong, implanted and caused to operate in us by a
Perfect Being. The late Professor Clifford, for instance,
was wont to describe it as the "experience of the tribe."
In other words, it was, in his view, simply the aggregate
verdict of humanity on questions of right and wrong,
grasped and applied to a given case by the individual.1

1 See for a full examination of this subject, MARTINEAU, A Study
of Religion, Book II. chap ii. He deals very exhaustively with a
similar theory put forward by James Mill. Mill asserts (1) that self-
love is the spring of action, (2) that collective self-interest sets up
a different standard to that dictated by the self-interest of the in
dividual, and (3) that conscience is the measure of the demands of

THE GROUNDS OP OUR BELIEF IN GOD. 61

But this theory fails to account for three facts patent to all
who have ever examined the workings of the human spirit.
The first is the extraordinary intensity, in many cases, of
the self-condemnation — the misery and anguish caused hy
it, even where the action is not by any means regarded by
the majority of those among whom the sufferer lives as
criminal, or even culpable.1 The second is the existence, at
all times, of a number of persons whose moral standard
is distinctly in advance of that of the vast majority of
those among whom their lot is cast. The third is the

collective self-interest, as opposed to that of the individual. Dr.
Martineau denies the first and second of these propositions, and he
shows that the third represents the objects which the individual and
the community have respectively in view as not identical, but con
flicting, whereas the conscience of the individual and that of the
community ought, on the supposition that they are properly informed,
to be in harmony. As a matter of fact, the first two suppositions
of Mr. James Mill are directly opposed to the truth. Not Egoism,
but Altruism, is the true guide of conduct; i.e., not our own interest,
but other peoples interest, should be in each of us the object to the
attainment of which our energies are directed. And conscience bears
uniform and powerful witness to this truth, in its arraignment of both
individual and collective self-interest when opposed to the claims of
duty. A society, it may be added, in which each seeks his neighbours'
interest in preference to his own, will be a society in which the welfare
of all is secured.

1 The intensity, under some circumstances, of the heathen feeling
of self-reproach is remarkable. Not only is there the general feel
ing of un worthiness contained in Ovid's "Video meliora, proboque,
deteriora sequor," but a deeper sense of guilt is expressed by
Lucretius, and witnessed to by such plays as the Eumenides of
Aeschylus and the Oedipus Rex of Sophocles. "Will it be contended
that these writers did not express the feelings of their age, and that
they were in no sense its teachers ? Or will it be argued that their
moral standard was that of the majority of their countrymen, and in
no sense in advance of it ? Do they not teach us that the highest
expression of the verdict of conscience, in any country at any given
time, cannot be simply the resultant of the moral sense of the
inhabitants of that country at that time, but just the contrary ?

62 THE CREED.

equally distinct growth of the conception of right and
wrong in Christian society, among the members of that
class which has always been in advance of its fellows.
It is not denied that the accumulating " experience of
the tribe " might produce a certain growth in the sense
of moral excellence. But a stream cannot rise above
the level of its source. If conscience is simply the ex
perience of the tribe, the individual conscience must reflect
the verdict of the corporate conscience. If the individual
conscience rise above the level of that of the tribe, from
whence are its conclusions drawn? and, what is still more
to the point, what support can it possibly have for them?
And if it is the individual conscience which leads and forms
that of the community at large, does not this point to a
gradual realization by mankind in general of those elementary
truths which are at first perceived only by those who have
not suffered their moral perceptions to be dimmed by self-
interest? If it be argued that the persons who are in advance
of others in the elevation of their sentiments are only
quicker than their neighbours to detect the true teaching of
experience, we may reply that at least this involves the ad
mission that the experience of the individual is sometimes in
advance of that of the tribe, and further, that it indicates the
existence of some objective truth at the root of experience,
some first principle of moral obligation, whose violation
will produce evil effects. This is still further evident from
the consideration that deeply religious men have, in all
ages, been far above the "experience of the tribe." Was
theirs experience ? Must it not rather have been intuition ?
We are thus led, by the examination of phenomena, to the
idea of Duty, of some law inherent in society, and there
fore obligatory on the individual, which guides us into
a course of conduct calculated to promote the common
good. In other words,, there exists a standard of right and

THE GROUNDS OP OUR BELIEF IN GOD. 63

wrong altogether independent of the opinion of man
kind in general, a standard which mankind is bound
to do its best to discover, and to the requirements of
which mankind is bound to conform. Thus, then, the
conditions of moral life among mankind, whether regarded
individually or collectively, reveal the existence of a
mysterious inner force, which continually impels them
towards good.1

Yet a difficulty meets us here. If such a force exists
as that of which we have just spoken, why is it so often
thwarted in its operation? Why is it that, after so many
ages, the collective conscience of mankind is so far from
responding, as it should, to the promptings of this inner
monitor? This brings us to the consideration which,
more than any other, tends to prevent the mass of man
kind from heartily believing in God. It is the existence of

1 It must be borne in mind that the conclusions of men like James
Mill and Professor Clifford are incapable of actual demonstration.
They can, at best, be but theories on a point on which no demonstra
tion is possible. If it be replied that neither are the theories adopted
by the advocates of revelation capable of demonstration, we answer
that this is admitted by themselves. But where no demonstration is,
from the nature of things, possible, faith, we contend, steps in. And
we further contend that if a man will but follow his higher instincts
he will find himself irresistibly impelled in the direction of faith.
Archdeacon Norris (Rudiments of Theology, Appendix, pp. 243-246)
cites a remarkable and eloquent passage from Tertullian's De Testi-
monio Animae on the witness borne to God's existence by the sense
of responsibility and dread of judgment which appears to be inherent
in the soul. I quote two phrases. Speaking of God, he says,
"Senti illam quae ut sentias efficit." "Reflect on that which
makes thee capable of reflection." " Deus ubique et bonitas Dei
ubique . . . judicii Divini invocatio ubique, mors ubique, et con-
scientia mortis ubique, et testimonium ubique." "God is every
where, and God's goodness is everywhere. . . . Everywhere do
men appeal to the Divine judgment. Everywhere do we find
death, everywhere the consciousness of death, everywhere the
witness of death."

64 THE CREED.

evil.1 The problem of the existence of evil has occupied all
religions, and all philosophies, from the beginning. No one
denies that evil exists ; no one has been able to explain the
reasons for its existence. Even revealed religion treats it as
a fact, and does not attempt to account for it.2 The result
of evil, in man, has been to blind his perceptions, as well as
to pervert his will. Not only does he find a "law in his
members, warring against the law of his mind,"3 but the
very action of his mind is clouded, as far as regards its
conceptions of right and wrong. Thus the collective
morality of the world at large is not only perverted, but
must necessarily be so. The needle, which should point
in the direction of the star of duty, is deflected by
attractive forces in its neighbourhood, and this the mariner
is bound to take into account. And so the vast pre
ponderance of evil in this world must, of necessity, have
an immense effect in perverting our ideas of right. Even
on the theory that the self-interest of mankind at large it
the sole standard of right and wrong, we are confronted
with the fact that individuals are continually violating the
requirements of that standard, and are thus the cause of
the misery that exists. Is there, or is there not, a moral
force — a " not ourselves," to use Mr. Matthew Arnold's well-
known phrase — "that makes for righteousness," in the midst

1 The experience of the writer as a lecturer on Christian Evidence
has convinced him that nine-tenths of the unbelief in the existence of
God prevalent among the poorer classes, arises from their inability to
understand how an infinitely good Being can permit the existence of
so much misery as they see around them, and experience themselves.
Thus the best argument concerning the Being of God which we can
bring to bear upon the working classes, is the practical one of doing
all in our power to diminish the sum of human misery, and to improve
the condition of the poor.

2 The narrative in Gen. iii. simply states that man's fall was
caused by his determination to have experience of evil as well as of
good. See chap. v. sec. ii. 3 Rom. vii. 23.

THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF IN GOD. 65

of the moral confusion around us? Observation makes it
clear (1) that there is, and always has been, such a force at
work, (2) that this force acts with very different intensity
in different ages and different parts of the world, and (3)
that the approximation to the true moral standard has
always been closest where revealed religion has had
fullest play. Thus, then, we are led to the conclusion that
there exists a moral force in the world, tending to produce
conformity to its dictates, and that this force operates most
strongly where, as in the case of Christianity, the concep
tions of God are the clearest and the highest. We are thus
advanced another step in the demonstration of the Divine
existence.1 We are led to infer the existence of a power
which everywhere works for righteousness in the heart and
mind of man.

This conclusion is confirmed by a glance at the history of
mankind. We need not here repeat the profound but
irresistible arguments by which Bishop Butler demonstrates
the fact that such a moral force as that which has just been
mentioned has obviously been at work in the course of human
history. But no one can thoughtfully review that course of
history without discerning there the working of a Divine
plan, which tends to reward good and to discourage evil.
We cannot reject Bishop Butler's conclusions that the world
is governed by a system of rewards and punishments, that
this government is moral in its character; that mankind
is obviously under probation,2 and that moral discipline
and improvement is the object of that probation; that
whether we can fully comprehend the constitution of

1 We have here anticipated an argument for revelation, to which we
must hereafter return. See p. 73.

a Or, as some modern thinkers, Mr. Heard, for instance, prefer to
put it — education. See HEARD, Old and New Theology, p. 215.
Dr. Littledale expresses a similar opinion in an Essay contributed to
The Wider Hope.

THE CREED.

things under which we live, or whether we cannot, we
can comprehend enough to know that we are under such
moral government; and that, if we take pains to learn the
lessons we are intended to learn, we shall most certainly
find ourselves restrained from evil, and impelled towards
good.

V. Thus the phenomena presented by the world at large
corroborate those of the inner constitution of mankind,
and establish the truth that the power which underlies
those phenomena is a power for good. We come next to the
question, why, if there be indeed a mighty creative Power
Who wills our happiness, He has permitted evil to exist1?
We must go again to Bishop Butler to indicate the
direction in which the answer is to be found. In the
fifth chapter of the first part of his Analogy, he discusses
this life, regarded as a probation presumably intended for
moral discipline and improvement. It is analogous, he
says, to the course of education a man has to go through
for any particular trade or profession. Men are un
questionably trained, during the course of this life, for
positions here for which, when commencing that training,
they are obviously entirely unqualified. Why, he asks,
should they not be, in like manner, trained in this world
for a future life, which, he adds, may be, in many ways,
similar to life here below, and may need the same qualities
of veracity, justice, charity, self-restraint, and the like,
which are desirable here1? The object of the present life,
properly understood, is to produce habits of self-govern
ment — such habits as can be formed only by a course of
discipline. But this state of discipline clearly involves
(1) moral freedom, and therefore (2) liability to fall; for
where there is no possibility of error there can be no
moral excellence, as we understand the phrase. Mechanical
propriety and moral excellence, let it be remembered, are

THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF IN GOD. 67

not convertible terms. To attain the latter there must
be superiority to temptation. But temptation involves a
state of things in which evil necessarily exists. From this
point of view the Fall appears to us as a moral necessity,1
and evil itself as a stage in the development of good. For,
were there no evil, all the higher forms of goodness were
impossible. They involve conflict with, and victory over,
evil. Thus the " Author of our salvation " is said to have
become "perfect through suffering,"2 because it was only
by endurance of suffering that He could manifest the
majesty and beauty of His human life. Life without suffer
ing and trial displays no more moral majesty or beauty than
the processes of crystallization or evaporation — some people
would say not half as much. Thus, even Nature teaches
what Christianity confirms, that "good is the final goal of
ill " ; that sorrow, and pain, and even sin itself, the cause
of both, are but factors in the ultimate evolution of eternal
peace and joy. For without those qualities, which are
called out by endurance, the higher forms of happiness
are impossible. Life, for finite beings,3 becomes no more
than a mechanical fulfilment of function, without responsi
bility, without self-approval, without the consciousness of
desert. There is no scope, in a world where sin and
suffering are unknown, for what we call nolle actions.
And yet there are no actions to which the human con
science so instinctively and warmly awards commendation
as to acts of heroic bravery, steadfast endurance, conflict
with temptation, persevering devotion to the welfare of our
fellow-creatures. Such acts as these extort admiration even
from those over whose lives it is only too evident that the

1 Not to the individual, but to the race. 2 Heb. ii. 10, xii. 3.

8 This observation must be confined to finite beings, because we are
utterly incapable of understanding in what the Divine capacity for
happiness consists.

68 THE CREED.

motives which prompted them have no power. Thus our
moral constitution bears witness to the fact that evil is no
more than a step in the development of the race — a term in
the series whose sum is the ultimate happiness of mankind
— a factor in the problem, by the solution of which that
happiness is attained.1

The existence of evil, then, presents, after all, no in
superable difficulty in the way of belief in God. " Nature,
red in tooth and claw with ravine," may be said, it is true,
to " shriek against the creed." We may " falter where we
firmly trod " when we recollect that " of fifty seeds " Nature
often " brings but one to bear."2 We may not be able to
understand why in nature animals are made to prey upon
one another, and may be able to do no more than hope that
the death-sufferings of the animal creation are mercifully
minimized so that they bear but an infinitesimal proportion
to their joys.3 But while we leave the solution of these

1 " We come into the world already furnished with activities which
have no other function than to repulse ills that approach ourselves,
and draw us to those that visit our fellows ; a constitution which, at
the same time, presupposes suffering, yet, far from making it an end,
meets it with a remedy, and shows how the face of Nature turns
towards it with regretful looks." MARTINEAU, A Study of Religion,
ii. 99. And again : * ' Suffering is not only the postulate whence our
moral nature starts ; it is also the discipline through which it gains
its true elevation." Ibid., p. 100. Dr. Martineau also quotes an
aphorism from RICHARD ROTHE'S Stille Stunden, " Niemand wird
ohne Leiden geadelt." In connection with this subject HINTON'S
Mystery of Pain may be studied with advantage. Among ancient
writers Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia confirm the view here
taken. 2 TENNYSON, In Memoriam, 56.

8 There is, perhaps, no feature in the order of Nature which less
easily harmonizes with an ideal perfection of moral nature than the
law of prey, which makes each race of creatures, through vast
provinces of natural history, the devourer of some other. The
natural desire we feel to free the caught fly from the spider's web,
or to rescue the mouse from the owl's beak, constitutes an, in voluntary
protest against the method in which the animal commissariat is

THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF IN GOD. 69

mysteries in higher hands than ours, hoping that the key to
them may one day be within our reach, we have no ground
whatever for doubting that, in the economy of human life,
pain, and even evil itself, is an instrument in God's hands
for inducing in man higher capacities for happiness than
he could ever have attained without it.

VI. We proceed to the phenomena of man's moral and
spiritual nature. The existence of the moral emotions pre
supposes the existence of some corresponding characteristic
in the Creator. Otherwise, why were they implanted in
us ? From whence do they come ? The emotions of love,
mercy, pity, trust, sympathy, kindness, benevolence — are
they the reflection, as well as the channel, of a Higher
Benevolence, a more expansive love, and do they exist in
us for the benefit of those around us, or are they mere
freaks of Nature ? * The spiritual faculties, too, with which

managed ; and after closely following the habits of the predaceoua
families, and engaging our imagination with the terror of the hunted
victim, the agony of the capture, the atrocity of the death, we are
tempted to say that the sweet face of Nature is hypocritical, and that
the calm loveliness of the woods and ravines does but hide innumer
able torture-halls and battle-fields. From such impressions I own
that I cannot entirely free myself." A Study of Religion, ii. 93.
We must refer the reader to Dr. Martineau's volume for the argu
ments with which he endeavours to show that this view arises from
"a partial and narrow view of the phenomena." But he certainly
understates the gravity of the case. The worst feature of it
undoubtedly is that man, with his admittedly higher moral qualities,
is by far the most cynically treacherous and brutal of all beasts of
prey ; that he does not scruple remorselessly to destroy any animal
when it suits his comfort and convenience ; and that the very being
which feels itself irresistibly impelled to avenge the slaughtered
lamb, or to destroy the spider's web, will, often without the least
scruple, destroy the life even of a creature whom he has fed and
fondled. See WALLACE'S Darwinism, in reference to this note.

1 "Well, then, from this constitution of our humanity, is there
nothing to be learned of its Author ? Are its laws without relation
to the Law-giver ? Are we made to approve and reverence what He

70 THE CREED.

we are endowed, are they without an object? Is the
consciousness of God's existence, which, in some shape or
other, we have seen1 to be practically universal among
mankind, a consciousness which subserves no end, and for
which we are able to assign no adequate cause? The
"rudest savages," as Mr. Herbert Spencer says,2 rose from
the gross details of their daily lives to the conception of
some power beneath and beyond the things they saw. He
very considerably misrepresents the imperfect nature of
those conceptions when he says that they pictured the
cause, or causes, of visible things to have been " creatures
of flesh and blood," like those who entertained them. An
element of mystery and greatness attached to those con
ceptions, however inadequate. It is not too much to say
that they always bore witness to an essential distinction
between the idea of these higher powers and the idea of
man. The objects of savage worship are not natural, but
supernatural. And the important fact must not be lost
sight of, that what we may fairly describe as the intuitions
of the human mind on this point correspond to the
inferences of the reason. The question, therefore, demands
an answer, Are we to set aside these intuitions as illusory ?
And with them, are we to brush away all the emotions
of awe and reverence towards the unseen power; all the
beliefs which prompt men, and have always prompted
them, to worship ; all that dependence upon, and confidence
in, a Supreme and Eighteous Power over-ruling all things

regards with aversion or indifference ? Are the variegated tissues of
sympathy woven by One whose infinitude admits no colours of
affection, and is empty of all pathetic sympathy ? Nay, in giving
ns compassion, is He not, ipso facto, compassionate, providing count
less channels through which remedial blessings flow ? In grouping
us around centres of love is He not loving, inventing for our life
what most sweetens and elevates it ?" -A Study of Religion, ii. 44.
1 See p. 42. 2 First Principles, p. 109.

THE GROUNDS OP OUR BELIEF IN GOD. 71

for good, which have been the source of the best and
noblest of human actions? The sense of sin, too, as an
act of ingratitude and disrespect towards a higher power,
which is so powerful a factor in human life — which has been
felt with such tremendous intensity by many, and which
has been at the root of the innumerable sacrificial systems
to be found in the religions of the world — is it founded
upon a truth, or must we class it among the vulgar errors
destined to die out, with other religious ideas, before the
progress of science and intelligence 1 l That there should
be a period of temporary reaction against unworthy and
one-sided conceptions of God, such as have been put forth
with somewhat too much confidence in the name of
Christianity, need not be a matter of surprise. But
insulted Nature will have her revenges,2 and a future
generation, we may be sure, will prostrate itself with
deeper reverence than ever in the Temple of Him Whose
most obvious expression is doubtless Law, but Whose
highest attribute is love.3

VII. Nor are we compelled to stop here. Experience has
shown, and an infinite number of writers, especially in
the present age, have triumphantly pointed out how the
Incarnation and Life of Christ, as revealed in the Gospel,
furnishes the only solution to the innumerable problems
suggested by man's being, and his relation to the facts
around him. The need for some such guidance can hardly
be disputed. It is stamped in ineffaceable characters upon

1 HERBERT SPENCER, First Principles, pp. 110, 113.

2 She lias her revenges now in the follies of Esoteric Buddhism,
Spiritualism, and the like.

3 " The more we regard the religious phenomena of mankind as a
whole, the more the conviction grows upon us that here, as in other
departments of social affairs, science has obtained no real grasp of
the laws underlying the development which is proceeding in society.
These religious phenomena are certainly among the most persistent

72 THE CREED.

the whole of human history. More especially was the
craving felt just at the moment when God had taken means
to satisfy it. Justin Martyr tells us, in graphic language,
how he was driven from one creed to another by a sense of
their inadequacy, and found refuge in Christ alone.1 The
author of the Clementines paints a still more graphic picture
of a young man " wasting away " from the anxiety produced
by inability to grapple with the uncertainty involved in his
very existence, and the still more terrible doubt as to
whether his life would be prolonged beyond the grave.2
Neander, in his History of the Christian Churchy has a
powerful picture, taken from Plutarch's treatise concerning
Superstition and Atheism, of the hopeless misery in which
many were engulfed in the times immediately preceding the
Revelation of God in Christ.3 Nor is this all. Many of
those who have been compelled, by dialectical subtleties,
to surrender their belief in God, have been a prey to untold
agonies from want of some one to whom to pray and seek

and characteristic features of the development which we find man
undergoing in society. No one who approaches the subject with an
unbiassed mind, in the spirit of modern evolutionary science, can
for a moment doubt that the beliefs represented must have some
immense utilitarian function to perform in the evolution which is
proceeding." KIDD, Social Evolution, pp. 21, 22. And in his chapter
on "The Function of Religious Beliefs" he shows that, throughout
the whole history of mankind, supernatural beliefs have been necessary
to impel man to sacrifice his own good to that of the community-
But he is in error when he identifies the impulse toward self-
indulgence with the reason. For the more recent and modified
attitude of men of science toward Theism and the supernatural, see
Canon GOIIE'S Life of Professor Romanes, and some interesting
information on the views of Professor Huxley in an article by
Mr. Wilfrid Ward, in the Nineteenth Century for August, 1S96.

1 Dialogue with Trypho, chap. 2.

8 Recognitions, chap. 2.

a Ecd. Ilist., vol. i. p. 17 (Rose's translation).

THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF IN GOD 73

for sympathy.1 Thus, to the evidence of man's nature and
moral constitution in general we may add the evidence of
human needs, for which it is only reasonable to believe
that the Creator must have provided some source of supply.
VIII. The last consideration therefore on this head is
that of our need of a revelation. The doctrine revelation
has taught us concerning God will be deferred till the
next chapter. But we cannot leave the question of the
grounds on which we base our belief in God without dis
cussing the a priori probability that He would vouchsafe
some revelation of Himself. This probability rests upon
the admitted inadequacy of natural religion or philosophy,
in any shape, to satisfy the cravings of the human heart.
Not only does the history of mankind, as we have seen,
demonstrate man's need of help, but the need of some
adequate sacrifice for sin has, in all ages, pressed on the
conscience of humanity. Is it more likely that God,
supposing Him to exist, would make some provision for
these human cravings, or that He would withhold it 1 The
former supposition falls in with the facts both of man's
acknowledged need and with the conception of God's good
ness which we have independently reached. The latter
flings us back at once into the abyss from which our ideas
of God have rescued us. Thus, the fact of a revelation is,
in itself, antecedently probable. This probability derives
strength from two very noticeable facts in the world's
history. The first, that the history of revelation has been
indissolubly bound up with the history of human progress

1 The following words from a German ' ' Prayer of an Atheist "
give pathetic expression to this feeling. I have ventured to translate
them as follows :

"0, came there to my longing heart

Some certain proof of life Divine,
Then would I pray, full of eager warmth,
As ne'er a pilgrim at hallowed shrine."

74 THE CREED.

in morality and happiness;1 the next, that while, on the
one hand, many who have rejected revelation in earlier
life have come eventually to find that they could not do
without it, it may be safely said, on the other, that none
who have made the doctrine of Christ their practical guide
throughout life have ever been forced to confess, in their
later years, that they found it unsatisfactory or inadequate.
On the contrary, their experience has ever led them to
express in the strongest possible language, and with a
strength of conviction ever deepening, that "other founda
tion can no man lay" in passing through life than "that
which is laid, which is Jesus Christ."2

If we ask how such a revelation can be made, Paley's
answer, In no way that we are able to conceive except
by miracles,3 is more easily scoffed at than refuted. No
one has been able to show us how a special communication
could be made from God to man without some external
authentication. So Nicodemus reasoned when he said, "No
man can do these signs that Thou doest, except God be with
him."4 And so our Lord taught; "the very works that I

1 See BRACE'S Gesla Christi. I may also refer to Christianity as a
Moral Power, a paper read by myself before the Victoria Institute in
the year 1877.

2 1 Cor. iii. 11. We cannot press this practical argument at any
length ; but we may briefly protest against the idea that this great
question is to be decided by the suffrage of those who claim for them
selves the title of "intellectual." "Many a poor, unlettered woman,
who has spent months or years in a darkened sick chamber, unable
even to read a single page of her Bible, may have a knowledge of
God firmer, deeper, truer, than the greatest of theologians." Arch
deacon NORRIS, Rudiments of Theology, p. 13. See also note 1, p. 29.
On this practical or experimental knowledge great stress, on scientific
principles, should be laid. It is immeasurably stronger than the
negative argument adduced from the ignorance of the Agnostic,
although the contrary is often supposed to be the case. In scientific
research conclusions are based on what men have observed, not on
what they have determined to ignore, or have failed to notice.

3 Evidences— Introduction. 4 John iii. 2.

THE GROUNDS OP OUR BELIEF IN GOD. 75

do bear witness of Me, that the Father hath sent Me."1
" Though ye believe not Me, believe the works, that ye
may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I
in the Father."2 Thus, then, revelation must be a super
natural communication. By a supernatural communication,
it may be necessary to explain, is meant one which is made
in a manner outside the ordinary course of nature. By some
the assertion that a revelation must be thus made may be
condemned as an assumption. But this is not altogether
the case; for those who condemn it as such are bound to
show in what other way God, consistently with His methods
of dealing with mankind, could have made such a com
munication. Further, we have already shown (1) that it
is extremely probable, from the condition of mankind as
revealed by observation, that such a revelation should have
taken place; (2) that there is considerable ground for the
belief that it has taken place, and that by the aid of
miraculous agency ; and (3) we find that the revelation,
whose innate reasonableness and probability we have
demonstrated, did not take place by any other means.
The external attestations of revelation are miracles and
prophecy. There is also an internal attestation, derived
from its power to touch and satisfy the heart. These, as
I have said elsewhere, " constitute ' a threefold cord, which
cannot' easily 'be broken.'"3 This is not the place to
discuss the credibility either of miracles or prophecy ; 4 but

1 John v. 36. 2 John x. 38.

3 In p. 108 of the paper quoted above, p. 44.

4 I have dealt with Miracles in a separate treatise — Are Miracles
Credible ? And Professor MOZLEY'S Bampton Lectures have dealt most
ably with the same subject. There is great need for an exhaustive work
on Prophecy in relation to modern critical theories. I have shown in
my Principles of Biblical Criticism, chap, vi., that on any critical
theory whatever of the date of the Hebrew prophecies, there still re
main many remarkable and undeniable predictions of Christ and the
Christian Church which could not have been written after the event.

THE CREED.

it may, at least, be permitted to say that there is one
miracle so strongly attested by historical evidence, that
the Christian may safely rest the whole question of the
miraculous upon its truth or falsehood. That miracle is
the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is an event, upon
the actual occurrence of which the Christian Church is
founded. And the evidence for it is of a kind which
unbelief has been entirely unable to explain away, either
on the hypothesis of imposture, or on the hypothesis of
hallucination.1 The question for prophecy may also be
reduced within very narrow limits, by a consideration of
the following facts. However many of the prophetic
utterances may fairly or unfairly be explained away, there
remain2 certain very definite prophecies in the Old Testa
ment, which cannot be applied to any but Jesus Christ.
That they were written before the event is shown (1) by
the date of the Septuagint Version; and (2) that, up to
the very moment of Christ's Resurrection, it was impossible
for anyone to have foreseen the nature of His claims on our
belief, or the way in which those prophecies were about to be
realized. Add to these astonishing facts the light thrown
upon the nature of Christianity by the history of the Chris
tian Church, the extraordinary influence the doctrine and life
of Jesus Christ has had over the conscience of mankind,
the undiminished — nay, greatly increased — vitality of that
doctrine, after eighteen centuries and a half, and the mar
vellous regeneration of society which has followed in its train,
and we are confronted with a series of facts which, if they do
not immediately compel our allegiance, present, at least, con
siderations which no reasonable man can ridicule or ignore.

1 Nowhere else is the case for Christianity so well put on this
crucial point, than in GODET'S Conferences Apologetiques, a small
volume which has been translated into English by the Rev. W. H.
Lyttclton, in a volume published by Messrs. T. and T. Clark.

2 See Note 4, last page j also pp. 265-7.

THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF IN GOD. 77

We have now sketched the history of the belief in God,
and have briefly indicated the arguments on which it rests.
We have recognized that phenomena require a Cause ; that
they are directed by a Force; that this Force appears to
work on moral principles of justice and beneficence, and
to be operating in the heart and conscience of man, as
well as in the world external to him. We have seen
that the moral needs of man seem to call for belief in
such a Being, and that such belief supplies the one satis
factory guide to the Law which should govern us in our
dealings with our fellows. We then discussed the imper
fection of the guide thus supplied, and discovered the
cause of this imperfection in the existence of evil. But
we found strong reason to conclude that evil is but a
passing phase of God's dealings with us ; and that the
existence of evil, supposed by some to be incompatible
with the existence of the Perfect Good, is in reality
necessary to the evolution of the highest kind of goodness.
We next examined the moral and spiritual constitution
of man, and discerned in them organs which, on the
supposition of the non-existence of God, would be useless,
and the existence of which was therefore, on that sup
position, inexplicable. We then proceeded to discuss the
probability that God would vouchsafe some revelation of
Himself to those who were obviously unable, of them
selves, to arrive at sufficient information about Him, and
we found that this probability was very considerable.
And, lastly, we summarized the evidence for the revelation
which we believe He made of Himself in and through Jesus
Christ, and we found, in its " fourfold cord " of miracles,
prophecy, practical consequences, and inward conviction, an
influence of immense strength attaching us to Him.

These arguments are sufficient at least to show the
reasonableness of an inquiry into the subject matter of

78 THE CREED.

the alleged revelation — the only attempt, we may add, to
explain the phenomena of existence on the ground of a
vsupernatural manifestation from on high of the ultimate
truths relating to it, which is admitted to be worthy the
attention of reasonable men. We conclude by pointing out
that the idea of God to which our investigation points,
involves His Unity. That there could be two independent
ultimate forces at work in the creation of the Universe1 —
two separate sources of moral excellence — two unconnected,
and possibly antagonistic, roots of the idea of duty, would
seem altogether impossible. The principle of evil, the
existence of which we have admitted, might, it is true, be
regarded, as it was by the Gnostics and Manichaeans in
early times, as co-ordinate in power and authority with the
principle of good. But such an idea is incompatible with
the progress in moral conceptions, and in the power to
realize them in action, which is evident in the history
of mankind. The facts, no doubt, point to a power
inherent in man of resisting God's Will. But this power
only exists within certain limits. Man's power to resist is
controlled by God's power to direct, govern, and sustain the
course of the universe. Thus we have an additional reason
for believing that man's capacity to disobey God is the only
possible means whereby he can attain the highest moral per
fection. And if this be true, evil itself is reduced to a factor
in the world's development, and resolves itself into an opposi
tion of the creature to the Creator, permitted to take place
within defined bounds which it cannot pass, and only per
mitted as a means of finally securing the highest happiness
possible to intelligent beings.2 On these grounds we

luln this sense two prime causes are unimaginable; and for ail
things to depend of one, and to be more independent beings than one,
is a clear contradiction." PEARSON, p. 43.

2 For the question of the exclusion of some of those intelligent
beings from the happiness of the rest, see chap. vi.

THE GROUNDS OF OUR BELIEF IN GOD. 79

believe, to use the words of our Article, that "there is
One Living and True God, everlasting, without body, parts,
or passions;1 of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, the
Maker and Preserver of all things, both visible and in
visible."2

1 If this be rather believed on the authority of revelation than of
reason, it is, at least, not contrary to the latter.

2 For further arguments on this point see the BISHOP OF
GLOUCESTER on the Being of God (S.P.C.K.), and Professor
MOMERIE, Belief in God. FLINT'S Theism may also be consulted.
Beside these much valuable information on the points discussed in
this chapter will be found in Professor BONNEY'S Boyle Lectures on
"The Present Conflict between Science and Theology," contained in
his volume entitled Old Truths in Modern Lights.

Note on Chapter II. It will have been observed that the argument
in this chapter has been strictly inductive. That is to say, it has
taken facts, and only facts, for granted, and has endeavoured from
those facts to arrive at principles. To complete the chain of argument,
as used in the establishment of the Inductive Sciences, one ought to
invert the method, and assuming the principles arrived at, to inquire
whether the facts can logically be deduced from them. It must
suffice here to cite the confession of John Stuart Mill, that if a man were
to lead the life recommended by Jesus Christ, he would undoubtedly
be leading just the life a man ought to lead (Three Essays, p. 255).
And it only remains to add that, wherever the Christian Faith is
duly received, there a higher moral tone is invariably imparted to
human society, in accordance with which society manifests a pro
gressive improvement.

CHAPTER III.

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF GOD
SECTION I.

"l BELIEVE IN ONE GOD"

IN the last chapter we treated of the grounds for the
belief in God. And, though the a priori conception of
God thus reached may have been but a very distant
approximation to the truth in all its fulness, yet it involves
some important and necessary elements of any true con
ception of Him. We saw that there was evidence of the
existence of a supreme Power to Whom we, as human
beings, owe allegiance,1 of an Ultimate Force which lies
outside, yet is manifested in, all phenomena.2 We touched
historically upon the Hebrew conception, which we must
further unfold in the present chapter, that this Being is a
righteous ruler, " strong and patient," a " God of truth, and
without iniquity."3 We rejected the modern theory, which
conceives of Him as a metaphysical abstraction, and antici
pated the teaching of the Scriptures of the Old and New
Covenant, that He is a Living Fact — "an active Force, an
unceasing Energy," not standing apart from this world, but
closely, and, in fact, inseparably, connected with it; the
realization of the most perfect ideal of "Love, Goodness,
Justice, Wisdom, Truth."4 We must now turn to the
teaching of the Scriptures concerning God, by which the

1 See pp. 43-45. 2 See pp. 56, 57. 3 See pp. 58-60. 4 See pp. 60-65.

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF GOD. 81

outline arrived at in the previous chapter will, to a very
great extent, be filled in.

In examining the teaching of the Scriptures, we shall
follow a different method to that which has usually been
adopted in treatises of this kind. It has been the custom
to draw proofs indiscriminately from all parts of the
Scriptures alike, as though all stood precisely on the same
level. But, inasmuch as the revelation of God has been
progressive, it will, for many reasons, be more convenient
to adopt the historical method, and trace the gradual
development of the idea of God from the earliest revelation
until He had fully revealed Himself in Christ. Nor will
it be well to forget that though the true idea of God was
thus fully revealed in the Christian scheme, that idea
was by no means adequately grasped in the early ages of
Christianity, but has been, and is still being, more clearly
brought home to the conscience of Christendom by the
Spirit given by Christ to His Church, to lead her "into
all the truth."1

The revelation of God to the patriarchs was by no means
a complete one. Of the religious conceptions of the ages
before Abraham we have very insufficient information.
Abraham himself had, unquestionably, adopted a belief in the
Unity of God, and trusted Him implicitly as the guardian
and guide of his own life. The purity, simplicity, and dignity
of that life show plainly that he regarded God, in some sense,
as a moral governor. But his ideas were very undefined.
We find him tortured by an anxiety lest the "judge of
all the earth" should not "do right."2 We find him, it
may be, haunted by a doubt whether this Mighty Ruler

1 John xvi. 13.

2 Gen. xviii. 25. Abraham's conception of God was evidently far
more elementary than that taught in the Law of Moses. Though
regarding God as a powerful Being, he evidently has grave doubts
whether He be in truth a just one.

THE CREED.

and Judge might not require to be propitiated by human
sacrifice — a doubt which was only set at rest by a special
revelation from above.1 Jacob, again, seems to have been
inclined to localize the Divine Presence, and even to make
his own prosperity the condition of serving God. In that
mysterious wrestling recorded of him at Penuel, we find
him ignorant of the Name of his celestial visitant ; and his
faith, apparently, needed the support of a visible manifesta
tion of the Divine Being.2 Joseph was sustained in his
troubles by a firm belief in the protection of God — a belief,
no doubt, materially strengthened by the revelations God
vouchsafed to him of things to come. But it hardly ex
tended beyond a belief in a superintending providence, to
which man was under a deep moral responsibility.3

It was not until the time of Moses that anything like a
definite intellectual conception of the Divine Nature began
to be formed. In the silence of the desert of Horeb, the
vision of God as He is in Himself flashed upon the spirit
of the great Lawgiver. The Name by which the Semitic
races had been accustomed to call God, represented Him as
a Mighty, perhaps an irresistible, Force. The conception
entertained of Him by some of them implies His superiority
to other beings. Thus, Melchizedek is described as the
Priest of the Most High God4 (or of the Highest Power).
Balaam seems to have entertained a similar conception.5
But, from the time of the Vision in the Desert, a still
higher idea of Him went forth to the world. By the
figure of a bush which burned and yet was not con
sumed, the truth was indicated to Moses that God was

1 Gen. xxii. 2 Gen. xxviii. 17-22; xxxii. 24-30.

3 Gen. xxxix. 9. 4 Gen. xiv. 18-22.

5 Num. xxiv. 16. Deut. xxxii. 8 seems to be a reminiscence, on
the part of the writer, of the creed of the Semitic nations generally.
For the history of the term Most High God (El Ely on) see Dean
PLUMPTRE'S Biblical Studies.

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF GOD. 83

the Eternally Self-existent One;1 and that revelation was
further filled in by the ascription to Him of the noblest
moral attributes. He is the One God, "beside Whom
there is no other."2 He is "God of gods and Lord of
lords."3 He will share His prerogatives with none.4
He is incapable of change.5 He is the Living God ;
that is, life is His special possession and gift.6 He is
the Creator of heaven and earth,7 and His creation
was a work of beneficence.8 His majesty is so great
that no man can look on Him and live.9 He is at
once terrible to evil-doers, and tender and merciful to those
of low estate.10 His moral attributes are described in those
remarkable words in the Song of Moses, which sum up the
whole teaching concerning God in the Pentateuch, "He is
the Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are judg
ment ; a God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and
right is He."11 And to this we may add, as a companion
passage, the words heard by Moses in his Vision of God,
"The Lord, a God full of compassion, and gracious; slow
to anger, plenteous in mercy and truth; keeping mercy for
thousands ; forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and
that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity

1 The I AM, Exod. iii. 14. It is true that some have supposed the
Name Jehovah, or Jahveh (i.e. He is), to be older than Moses. But
whether this be so or not, (1) God does not appear to have been known
to the Hebrews by that Name, and (2) the fulness of meaning in tliu
word appears to have been grasped first by Moses.

2 Deut. iv. 35, 39 ; vi. 4 ; xxxii. 39. 3 Dent. x. 17.

4 Exod. xx. 5 ; xxxiv. 14. Deut. iv. 24 ; v. 9 ; vi. 15 ; xxxii. 21.

5 Num. xxiii. 19. 1 Sam. xv. 29. Job xxiii. 13. Ps. xxxiii. 11;
cii. 27. Mai. iii. 6. Of. Rom. xi. 29 ; Heb. i. 12, vi. 17 ; Jas. i. 17.

6 Deut. v. 26. Of. Josh. iii. 10 ; 2 Kings xix. 4, 16 ; and the
words "Jehovah liveth," Judges viii. 19 ; Ruth iii. 13 ; 1 Sam. xiv.
45 ; xx. 3. 2 Sam. ii. 27 ; iv. 9 ; &c. &c.

7 Gen. i. 1. 8 Gen. i. 31.

9 Exod. xxxiii. 20. Deut. iv. 33 ; v. 24-26.

10 Deut. vii. 21 ; x. 17, 18 ; xxviii. 58. n Deut. xxxii. 4.

84 THE CREED.

of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's
children, unto, the third and unto the fourth generation."1

This view of God is amplified by the Psalmists and by
the Prophets ; but, in all essential features, their portraiture
is the same. The unity of God, His determination not to
give "His glory to another,"2 His judgments on evil-doers
and His mercy towards the weak and desolate, His " slow
ness to anger," and the like, are insisted upon throughout
the old Dispensation.3 But some particular features of the
revelation of Him are brought out with greater distinctness
in later times. Such are His preference for obedience in
the spirit over obedience to the letter, enshrined in that
famous apophthegm of Samuel, "Behold, to obey is better
than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams."4 So,
too, the conception of the Majesty of God, which we find
in the blessing of Moses,5 was expanded in various ways,
and found convenient expression in the later title of "the
Lord of Hosts," which represented Him as ruling over
a countless army of celestial ministers, who bowed down
before Him with perpetual adoration, and hasted to do His
Will.6 These conceptions of His Being grew more spiritual
and less anthropomorphic as time went on. It was very
early that the idea took possession of mankind that none
could look upon God and live.7 The statement "Ye saw

1 Exod. xxxiv. 6-8. Cf. Exod. xx. 5, 6. It may be remarked that
if we adopt the views of some modern critics, anything like a historical
view of the evolution of the Idea of God among the Hebrews is, for
the present at least, impossible. We have really, on that theory, no
data to go upon till after the apostasy of the Ten Tribes.

2 Isa. xlii. 8 ; xlv. 5, 6 ; xlviii. 11.

3 e.g., Ps. x. 14 ; lii. 1-5. Isa. i. 17 ; xxx. 12. Joel ii. 13 ; &c., &c.

4 1 Sam. xv. 22. Cf. Ps. 1. 8-14 ; li. 16, 17. Jer. xxxi. 33. Ezek.
xxxvi. 25-27. Hosea vi. 6. s Deut. xxxiii. 2.

6 Ps. Ixviii. 17 ; Ps. ciii. 20, 21 ; Isa. vi. 1-4 ; Dan. vii. 10; and
in all the post-exilic prophets.
i Gen. xxxii. 30; Exod. xxxiii. 20; Deut. xviii. 16; Judges vi. 22.

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OP GOD. 85

no manner of form on the day that the Lord spake to you
out of Horeb"1 goes further, and implies that the idea
of God transcends one's utmost powers to conceive. This
statement, again, was expanded by later writers. None was
like Him, or equal to Him. He "measured the waters in
the hollow of His Hand, meted out heaven with the span,
comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and
weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance."2
The secrets of His Being were unsearchable. He was "as
high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than Sheol; what
canst thou know?"3 Thus, though occasionally we hear of
" the Lord's Arm " or " the Lord's Hand," and are informed
of visions where Jehovah " sits " on a throne and the
highest of created beings bow down before Him, yet the
imagery is so chastened that we gather from it a conception
of impenetrable mystery, of immeasurable and inconceivable
Majesty, Power, and Eternity.

The Christian Dispensation, however, sheds a still
brighter light upon the mystery of the Divine Nature.
God, as He is Himself, in all His Fulness, transcends
all our efforts to comprehend Him. "No man hath seen
Him at any time."4 The light in which He dwells is un
approachable." He is one "Whom no man hath seen, or
can see."5 But we are permitted, at least, to make some
nearer approaches to the unapproachable than of old. The
unity of God is still insisted on.6 He is still declared to be
Light, Life, Truth, the source of joy and peace.7 But two

1 Deut iv. 15.

2 Isa. xl. 12, 25. Of. Job v. 9 ; ix. 4-11 ; xxvi. 14 ; xxxvi. 26 ;
xxxvii. 5 ; xlii. 2. Ps. xl. 5 ; cxxxix. 1-18 ; cxlv. 3. Eccl. iii. 11 ;
xi. 5. Isa. xlv. 15 ; Iv. 8, 9. Micah iv. 12 ; &c.

3 Job xi. 7, 8. 4 John i. 18. 5 0ws OIKU»> airpoa-iTov, 1 Tim. vi. 16.

6 Markxii. 32; John xvii. 3; 1 Cor. viii. 4, 6; Eph. iv. 6; Jas. ii. 19.

7 John i. 4, 9 ; v. 26 ; vii. 28 ; viii. 12, 26. Rom. i. 7. 2 Cor.
xiii. 11. Gal. v. 22. 1 Thess. v. 23. Titus i. 2. 1 Jolm i. 5.

86 THE CREED.

other most important attributes emerge from the obscurity
in which they had hitherto been veiled. He is Spirit,1 and
He is Love.2 And these attributes are inseparably con
nected with the revelation of Him made in the Life, Death,
and Kesurrection of His Beloved Son.3 Nor is this all.
A doctrine which has been very reasonably supposed —
though the supposition cannot be absolutely proved — to
have been involved in some expressions found in the Old
Testament, emerges very distinctly in the pages of the
New. This is the doctrine of One God in Three Persons
— the Trinity in Unity.

Before we proceed, however, to unfold the Christian
doctrine on this point, it will be necessary to caution the

1 In John iv. 24 (A.V.) these words are translated "God is a
Spirit." But there is no article in the original, and therefore no dis
tinction is suggested between God and other spirits. The use of the
indefinite article in English does not, it is true, involve any such dis
tinction ; but it is a question whether it excludes any such idea with
sufficient defmiteness. The meaning evidently is that God's essential
nature is Spirit. But when we come to ask what is meant by Spirit,
it is to be feared that the notion entertained by many is extremely
hazy. The word is used without explanation by most theologians, and
from this want of precision the most lamentable confusion of thought
has flowed. Many seem to think that "spiritual" means nothing
more than invisible, or impalpable. They would not hesitate, for
instance, to predicate locality of a spirit ; in fact, to regard it in
much the same way as we should the air, or those invisible gases with
whose properties chemistry has made us familiar. Many angry and
apparently interminable controversies have arisen from a loose use of
the words " spirit," " spiritual " ; and the student is, therefore, in need
of great caution on the point. 7n/eu/xa properly means something
breathed. But, as God is Himself the breather, we cannot apply the
word in its passive sense to Him. It must, therefore, when applied to
Him, refer to what He is in Himself. It must indicate that He is the
fount of all existence, the very breath, stay, support, of all life. The
word Spirit, moreover, is commonly used as opposed to matter ; it is
regarded as having neither shape nor local habitation ; it controls
matter, but must not be identified with it. 2 1 John iv. 8, 16.

8 John i. 18 ; xiv. 9. Col. i. 15. Heb. i. 3. Also many of the
preceding references.

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF GOD. 87

reader against an ambiguity resulting from the infirmity
of human language. We have already seen that language,
when it essays to express abstract ideas, cannot get nearer
than a more or less imperfect approximation.1 Accord
ingly, many theological writers have accustomed themselves,
and, in one sense, have not improperly accustomed them
selves, to speak of God as a Person. But they also are
accustomed to speak of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as
the three Persons in the Blessed Trinity. There is
obviously the utmost danger of misapprehension on the
most vital points, unless we take special care to observe
that the word Person is used in entirely different senses in
these two cases.2 When God is described as a Person,
what is meant is that He is a living Being, capable of will,
purpose, moral attributes, and of such relations to other
beings as we are in the habit of describing by the term
personal.* But when we apply the term Person to the

1 See p. 54.

2 The laity are by no means slow to observe, and to point out, the
confusion of thought here, and to charge their teachers, and even the
formularies of their Church, with Tritheism. It were to be wished
that theology could contrive to use two different words to express
ideas so radically different. Our modern use of the word person to
express the idea of a rational and responsible agent, has made it
difficult to understand the term as applied to the Persons in the
Blessed Trinity. So also Rev. Int. de Th., Oct., 1897, pp. 763-5.

3 "Will . . . implies mind, and mind, as we know it, is an
essentially personal attribute. In this sense we attribute personality
to the First Cause. But in speaking of Him as a Personal God, we
must beware of falling into anthropomorphism. Personality, as we
know it in ourselves, is subject to limitations of time and space ; and
if we venture to speak of God as personal (in a sense, it may be well
to notice, quite different from that in which the term "Person" is
used in another branch of theology), we nrnst beware of introducing
along with the term those ideas of limitation to which personality, as
Ave know it in ourselves, is subject." Sir G. G. STOKES, Gifford
Lectures, first series, pp. 7, 8 ; see also pp. 18, 52, sqq. Thus it
•will be seen that it is by no means necessary for the accurate thinker

THE CREED.

three so-called Persons of the Blessed Trinity, we use the
word in a sense more closely corresponding to the original
meaning of the Greek word 7iy>oo-a>7rov. This word had
originally involved in it no conception of a seat of Will,
such as we now understand in the word personality. Its
original meaning is apparently appearance — something we
can look upon.1 Thus the word, when referred to the
Blessed Trinity, would at first sight seem to bear the
interpretation appearances — modes of viewing the Godhead
from a human standpoint. But here, again, the inadequacy
of language as a vehicle of thought displays itself.
Though the doctrine of the Holy Trinity presents itself
to us, in the first instance, in connection with the relation
of each Person "to us men," and to the work done by
each of them in " our salvation," yet we must not suppose,
with the ancient Sabellians,2 that these so-called " Persons "
can be simply resolved into human modes of apprehension
of the Nature and Work of the Divine Being. The
Persons in the Blessed Trinity are revealed to us in
Scripture and in the Catholic Creeds as eternal distinctions

to make the fatal admission, found in HANSEL, Bampton Lectures,
p. 56 (fourth edition), that "Personality, as we conceive it, is
essentially a limitation," or even, as he adds, "a relation." Modern
physical philosophy is a safer guide to truth than the German meta
physics on which Dean Mansel relies. The student may consult
ILLINGWORTH'S Bampton Lectures on this point.

1 It thus came to mean face. And though it afterwards, like its
Latin equivalent, persona, came to mean mask, this was not the
original sense.

2 Sabellius, who taught in the second century, taught that the
second and third Persons of the Trinity were either modes in which
human thought conceived of the Divine, or emanations from Divinity,
withdrawn into the Divinity itself when their work was done. His
teaching was not always consistent with itself. And it is obvious
that the latter view tends to introduce sensuous conceptions of
the Divine Essence. See NEANDER, Church History, vol. ii. p. 278
(Rose's translation) ; DORNER, On the Person of Christ, ii. 150, sqq.

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF GOD. 89

existing in the Godhead Itself, and not simply in our modes oi
apprehending It. Though Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as
we shall presently see, are revealed to us as One in Essence,
yet they are also revealed as being, in some senses, eternally
distinct from each other. Distinct, yet not separate. We
are not to conceive of them as distinct in the sense in which
we should be obliged to conceive of them as distinct if we
used the word Person in the signification in which it
is applied to God. That is to say, we are not to regard
them as three separate existences, possessing three inde
pendent Wills, and capable of three distinct sets of
purposes in regard to created things. The three Persons
in the Trinity have but one Nature and one Will.1 Still,
on the other hand, they are not to be considered as
personifications on our part, as modes of human thought.
The distinctions pointed out in the Catholic Creeds, and in
the writings of the New Testament, are eternal and inefface
able distinctions existing in the very Being of God, and
clearly manifested in His dealings with us, His creatures.
We do not profess to be able thoroughly to understand, or
to explain, the nature of these distinctions. It is sufficient
for us that, as we shall presently see, we find them revealed
to us by Jesus Christ ; and though we cannot fully penetrate
His meaning, we accept them on His authority.

As has already been said, the doctrine of the Trinity was
not expressly revealed to the Jews. It has been supposed

1 " The Persons in the Trinity are not three particular substances
to whom one general nature is common, but three that subsist by one
substance which itself is particular." HOOKER, Eccl. Pol., V. Ivi. 2.
And again, "The substance of God with this property, to be of none,
doth make the Person of the Father ; the very self-same substance in
number, with this property, to be of the Father, maketh the Person
of the Son ; the same substance, having added to it the property
of proceeding from the other two maketh the Person of the Holy
Ghost." Ib., V. li. 1. [Since this book first appeared, other thinkers
have expressed their preference for the word distinction to the word
person on this point.]

90 *HE CREED.

to be implied in such expressions as " Let us make man in
our own image."1 Appearances, again, of a Being in visible
form, Who claimed Divine attributes, and permitted Divine
honours to be paid to Him, have been supposed by Chris
tian theologians — especially in the earlier days of the
Christian Church — to have indicated the Eternal Word,
the only Revealer and Manifester of Him Whose Essence,
as it is in itself, the Everlasting Light by its very brilliance
conceals.2 There is unquestionably reason for such supposi
tions. It is to the New Testament, however, that we must
look for the definite unfolding of this great doctrine, which
alone is capable of translating the mysterious facts of the
Unseen World into a form in which we can approximately,
at least, understand and apply them. But even in the
New Testament, from the very nature of the case, we
shall find this doctrine rather taken for granted than
carefully and explicitly taught, as, in these times, we
might have expected it to be. For, as we have seen, it
was the substance of the Christian Creed, not the Christian
Scriptures, which, in the first instance, was communicated to
the Church. The Christian Scriptures were given to those
who had already accepted the verities of the Christian

1 Gen. i. 26 ; cf. iii, 22, xi. 7.

2 As, for instance, Gen. xviii. Jehovah here appears in human
hape. Also Gen. xxxii. 24 ; Josh. v. 14 ; Judg. ii. 1, vi. 11-24,

xiii. 20-23. The student must not fail to remark that where the
word Lord appears in capitals in the Old Testament, it refers to
the incommunicable name Jahveh (or Jehovah). See also, for the
Mal'ach, or Angel of the Covenant, of whom the Divine nature
is predicated, Exod. xxiii. 20, 23, xxxii. 34, xxxiii. 2, 14 ; Numb.
xx. 16 ; MaL iii. 1, &c. In Exod. xxxiii. 14, the word translated
Presence, is literally Face ; and is translated, in the LXX. and Fulgate,
" I myself." There is nothing unreasonable here in explaining the
passage of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity — the beaming
forth (see p. 132) of the Father's glory, and the impress of His
Substance.

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF GOD. 91

faith, and had been baptized into the Name of the Three
Persons of the Blessed Trinity.1 We shall find, in the
New Testament, abundant evidence that the doctrine of
the Trinity was thoroughly received and believed in
Apostolic days. But we shall not find it set forth sys
tematically. The information reaches us indirectly rather
than directly ; it comes by inference rather than, as a
rule, by express assertion.2

"We find the doctrine presented to us under four forms
in Holy Scripture. First, where the three Persons of the
Blessed Trinity are spoken of as " of One Substance, Power,
and Eternity"; next, where each Person in the Blessed
Trinity is spoken of as truly and properly God ; thirdly,
where the various Persons in the Blessed Trinity are
distinguished from one another in such terms as forbid
us to regard them as identical, or simply as representing
the view of the Divine Being taken for the moment by
the speaker, or even as temporary or partial emanations
of the Divine Essence which return into the One Divine
Person when the object of such Emanation is attained ;3
and, fourthly, when the work of any single Person of the

1 "We have to consider the fact that every line of the Apostolic
Epistles assumes that each one of the Christian Churches to which it
was sent was already instructed in the fulness of the Christian Faith
— not merely in the outlines, but in the filling up of such outlines.
In no one epistle do we find the Christian Faith set forth ab initio,"
&c. Preb. SADLER, Folkestone Church Congress Report, p. 43. "The
Apostles preached before they writ, planted Churches before they
addressed epistles to them." HAMMOND, Paraenesis, v. 3.

2 "It is just as incorrect to say that the doctrine of the Church
was originally drawn from Scripture, as to say that Scripture was
limited by Apostolic tradition." WESTCOTT, Canon of the New
Testament, p. 13, n. "The Canon of Scripture, and the 'Canon
of truth,' were alike independent ; but necessarily coincided in
their contents, as long as they both retained their original purity."
Dale, cited by HAMMOND, Church and Chapel, p. 149, note.

3 This (see p. 88) is one phase of Sabellianism.

92 THE CREED.

Trinity is spoken of in such terms as to preclude us from
regarding the worker as anything but Divine. It is the
last of these categories which indicates to us the vast
importance of the doctrine of the Trinity in the Christian
scheme. For we shall see that, if we were to strike out
from the New Testament Scriptures every allusion they
contain to the Divine character of the work of the Second
and Third Persons in the Blessed Trinity, a very large
portion of those Scriptures would disappear.

The first class of passages are such as the Baptismal
formula,1 and the Apostolic benediction.2 There the natural
inference is that God exists in three distinct manners or
modes, and that there is perfect sameness and equality
of nature in each of them.3 The second class contains
two branches — that which relates to the Godhead of the
Son, and that which relates to the Godhead of the Holy
Ghost. Jesus Christ is directly spoken of as God in
St. John i. 1 (cf. v. 14), in John xx. 28, in Philippians
ii. 5-9, and in Hebrews i. 3, 8, 10.4 Similar assertions
in Romans ix. 5 ; 2 Peter i. 1 ; Jude 4 ; 1 John v. 20,
have been disputed, but not on very sufficient grounds.
The same may be said, though perhaps to a less degree,
of such passages as Ephesians v. 5; 2 Thessalonians i. 12;

1 Matt, xxviii. 19. 3 2 Cor. xiii. 14.

3 St. John v. 7 is believed by most modern critics to "be spurious,
and is omitted in R.V. I confine myself, in this work, to the
strongest passages. Those who wish to enter more fully into the
discussion must consult larger works, such as PEARSON, Chi the Creed.

4 Differences of reading prevent us from citing as decisive, Acts
xx 28, and 1 Tim. iii. 16. In regard to Phil. ii. 5-9, the argument
is unaffected, whether we translate "thought it not robbery to be
equal with God," or "did not glory in His equality with God," or
"did not eagerly snatch at His equality with God." But the words
"in the form of God," when compared with "in the form of a slave,"
either assert or deny both the Godhead and the Manhood of Jesus
Christ.

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OP GOD. 93

Titus ii. 13.1 It is, however, needless to waste time in
insisting on a question of interpretation. If Jesus Christ
is once definitely spoken of as God in the New Testament,
it is decisive on the point that He was regarded as such in
Apostolic times. Moreover, we repeatedly find passages
occurring in the Old Testament, in which God is spoken
of by the Divine and incommunicable Name of Jehovah,
quoted in the New Testament as applying to Christ. Such,
for instance, are Isaiah xl. 3, applied to Christ in Matthew
iii. 3 ; Mark i, 3 ; Luke iii. 4 ; John i. 23. The way of
Christ is the way of Jehovah. Still stronger instances
are the use of Isaiah vi. 5 by St. John in chapter xii. 41,
and of Zechariah xii. 10 by St. John (xix. 37). Nor must
we overlook the passages where Christ is called the CIKWV 0eo£.2
To these proofs may be added passages in which Divine
attributes are ascribed to Christ. We find ascribed to
Him : (a) Eternity, as in John viii. 58 ; Colossians i. 15-17 ;
Hebrews i. 8-12, vii. 3, xiii. 8; Revelation i. 8, 17, 18,
xxii. 13. These words are used of God (Isa. xliv. 6). See
also John iii. 13, "Who is existing in heaven." But this
passage is absent from some copies of the New Testament.
(b) Creative power, as in John i. 3, 10, and the passages
above cited from Colossians i. and Hebrews i. The former
of these ascribes, moreover, to Christ the power of hold
ing all things together in Himself, regarded as a Divine
attribute by Aristotle.3 (c) Immutability, Hebrews i. 10, 11,
xiii. 8. (d) Self -existence, John i. 4, v. 21, 26, x. 30,
xi. 25, xiv. 6, 10. Though we learn, from one of

1 The language of Ignatius, the disciple and personal friend of some
of the Apostles, strongly confirms the Catholic interpretation of these
passages. He constantly uses the phrase "Jesus Christ our God."
The same may be said of Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and
other Ante-Nicene writers.

2 There is, however, a various reading "Him" in the passage in
Zechariah. For cticuv 0eoD see 2 Cor. iv. 4, and Col. i. 15.

8 See p. 57, note 2.

94 THE CREED.

these passages, that His self- existence was derived from
the Father, yet the others teach us that the existence He
thus derived was identical with His from Whom He derived
it. It is obvious that a Being with such attributes and
powers cannot be regarded as less than Divine.1 Some
have added to these proofs John i. 1, which states that the
"Word existed in the beginning"; that is, at the time when
the worlds were made. But though this distinctly asserts
that Christ existed before all created things, it cannot,
perhaps, be pressed so far as to represent it as demonstrating
His Eternity.

The Holy Ghost is spoken of as God, not directly, but
by the most obvious inference, in Holy Scripture. See,
for instance, Acts v. 3, 5, Matthew xii. 28, compared
with Luke xi. 20; 1 Corinthians vi. 19 compared with
iii. 16, and 2 Samuel xxiii. 2, 3, in which the laws of
Hebrew parallelism compel us to recognize the phrase
" Spirit of the Lord," in the former verse, to be equiva
lent to the phrase "God of Israel" in the latter. And
St. Paul quotes words, said to have been spoken by God,
in Isaiah vi. 9, as the words of the Holy Spirit. But the
question scarcely needs argument. Unless the terms " Spirit
of God," "Holy Spirit," are mere synonyms for God the
Father — and we shall presently show that they are not
— we cannot deny the Personality and Divinity of the
Holy Spirit. The breath (Trvev/xa) of God must Itself be
Divine ; and it is clear that wherever that Spirit, or breath,
is spoken of, it is not the shedding forth of an inferior
power, but of the Essential Nature of God Himself.2 We

1 See also PEARSON, On the Creed, p. 113.

2 It is a question whether 2 Corinthians iii. 17, 18, must not
be regarded as a direct assertion of the Divinity of the Holy Ghost.
The passage has been most variously interpreted. (I may refer to my
own note in Caml. Gr. Test, for Schools.) But it is fully within the
limits of fair interpretation to explain the whole passage, not of
Christ, but of the Holy Ghost. Thus understood, the passage states

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OP GOD. 95

must not omit the remarkable passage which tells us that
the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is a more serious
offence than the blasphemy against the Son.1 At first sight
this would seem to teach the inferiority of the Son to the
Spirit ; but this is obviously not what is meant. A careful
study of the passage shows that it is meant to teach that it
is worse to struggle against or to despise the Voice of God,
as manifesting itself in our heart and conscience, than to
fail to discern the Godhead of Christ while He was yet hid
under the veil of our human flesh. On the other hand,
it seems impossible to deny that He, the blasphemy against
Whom is spoken of in terms so awful, must of necessity
be in every way equal with God.

We come, in the third place, to the fact that the three
Persons of the Blessed Trinity are spoken of in such a way
as to compel us to believe that, though one in Essence, they
are, in some mysterious way, distinguished from one another
in such sense that the Son is not the Spirit, and that neither
of them is the Father. Hooker's language, quoted above,2

(1) that the Gospel of Christ is written in the hearts of the Corin
thians by the Spirit of the Living God ; (2) that this Gospel, or new
covenant, is not of the letter, but of the Spirit ; (3) that it ministers,
not condemnation, but righteousness ; (4) that Christians can gaze on
the revelation of the Divine glory with unveiled face ; (5) that by the
operation of Jehovah the Spirit (or the Spirit of Jehovah) we at once
reflect and are transformed into this glory.

1 Matt. xii. 31, 32 ; Mark iii. 28, 29 ; Luke xii. 10. It should be
noted that the Homoiousian School wrere inclined to doubt the
Divinity of the Holy Spirit, and that even when they were led to
accept the Homoousion doctrine, they wavered about the nature of
the Spirit. BASIL (see his Ep. 113) was willing to admit to com
munion all but those who called the Holy Ghost a creature, and was
defended by Athanasius, on the ground that Basil had only become
"weak to the weak, that he might gain the weak," as, indeed, he
himself expressly declares. See note 27, pp. 348, 349, in GIESELER'S
History of the Churchy vol. i. For Homoousians and Homoiousians
see pp. 127, 128. 2 See p. 89.

96 THE CREED.

may throw some light on the nature of these distinctions.
All we have to do is to ascertain whether they are recognized
as existing by those who alone have a right to speak with
authority among Christians. That such distinctions exist
is proved by the passages which speak of the Father
as sending the Son,1 loving the Son,2 and of the Son as
offering Himself to the Father through the Eternal Spirit.3
Some of these statements may be explained as referring to
Christ in His human nature. But there are others — e.g.,
John v. 20, vi. 38, xvii. 24 ; Galatians iv. 4 ; 1 John iv. 9
— of which this cannot be said. Then, the Spirit is said to
be sent both by the Father and the Son,4 to make inter
cession with the Father,5 and to receive from the
Son.6

In the fourth place, powers are ascribed to the second and
third Persons in the Blessed Trinity which are not only
superhuman, but essentially Divine. On this important
fact it may be said that far too little stress has usually been
laid in formal treatises on the foundations of the Faith.
Yet the whole New Testament, with the exception of the
first three Gospels, makes the indwelling of Christ in the
members of His Church — their continuous reception and
possession of life from Him — the very first principle of the
Gospel.7 As Canon Liddon has shown in his Bampton
Lectures, and as the pages of that once well-known book,
Ecce Homo, abundantly testify, powers no less than Divine

1 John v. 36, 37 ; vi. 38, 39. Acts iii. 20. Gal. iv. 4. 1 John
iv. 9.

2 John iii. 35 ; v. 20 ; xv. 9 ; xvii. 24. 3 Heb. ix. 14.
4 John xiv. 16, 26 ; xv. 26 ; xvi. 7. Acts ii. 33. Gal. iv. 6.

6 Rom. viii. 26. 6 John xvi. 13-15.

7 As Gregory of Nyssa puts it (see NEANDER, Eccl. Hist., iv. 441),
the principle of corruption (<f>66pa) was propagated in human nature
from the first sin ; and, in opposition to thfs, the principle of
immortality (d^Qapcrla.), proceeding from Christ, pervades our whole
human nature as a remedial principle.

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF GOD. 97

are practically claimed by Christ in the Synoptic Gospels.1
But, as Canon Liddon further shows, the Fourth Gospel,
and every epistle in the New Testament, regards the
life of Christ as continually streaming forth from Him,
to be the life of every one who believes in Him. We
can but briefly indicate this argument. Jesus Christ
says that God gave His Only -begotten Son, that all
who believe in Him might have eternal life.2 St.
Paul asserts the same truth in almost identical language
when he says that "the free gift of God is eternal
life in Jesus Christ our Lord."3 This life proceeds from
Christ to those who are united to Him by faith, as
the life of a tree is imparted to its branches,4 or a body
to its members.5 And that life is His Flesh, which,
with His Blood, are necessary to the subsistence of man
kind.6 This truth, asserted over and over again in the
most varied forms by St. Paul,7 is reaffirmed by St. John in
his Epistle,8 and is also definitely taught by St. Peter9 and
by St. James.10 But it is clear that it involves the Divinity

1 See LIDDON", Bampton Lectures, Lect. IV. , in which he points to
the exercise of Divine power by Christ in His miracles, in the absence
in His discourses of any consciousness of human weakness or sin-
fulness, in the authoritative tone He assumes in them. He quotes
Ecce Homo (p. 177) as admitting that even in the Synoptic Gospels
Christ "called Himself King, Master, and Judge of men," that He
"promised to give rest to the weary and heavy laden," and that He
spoke of feeding His disciples with His Body and Blood.

2 John iii. 16. 3 Rom. vi. 23.

4 John xv. 1-6. Cf. Rom. xi. 16-24.

5 Rom. xii. 4, 5. 1 Cor. vi. 15 ; xii. 12-27. Eph. iv. 15, 16 ;
v. 30. Col. ii. 19.

6 John vi. 51-58. Cf. 1 Cor. x. 15-17.

7 As in Rom. v. 15-21 ; vi. 11. 1 Cor. i. 30. 2 Cor. v. 17.
Gal. ii. 20. Eph. i. 23 ; ii. 5 ; iii. 17 ; iv. 23. Col. iii. 4.

8 1 John v. 11, 12. 9 1 Peter i. 3, 23 ; 2 Peter i. 4.

10 James i. 18, 21. See, on this point, LIDDON, Bampton Lectures,
p. 431 (1st ed.).

98 THE CREED.

of Christ, for to no being inferior to God could such powers
be ascribed.1

Nor is this all. This great work of redemption of our
nature from the power of evil by progressive sanctification
is further said to be the work of the Spirit. It is by
His influence that believers are incorporated into Christ.
He commences the regenerating work,2 and He, moreover,
continues it. The teaching of Christ concerning the life-
giving power of His Flesh and Blood is " life" because it is
'Spirit" and because it is the Spirit which "quickens,"
i.e. gives life. Were it not so, there would be no profit
in that teaching.3 The Spirit is said to dwell in us, as the
Father and the Son are said to do.4 Justification and
Sanctification, though coming from Christ, are the Spirit's
work,5 because it is by His instrumentality that the Divine
inhabitation or indwelling is effected.6 Love, which is of
God's Essence,7 is the gift of the Spirit.8 In Him we have
access, through Christ, to the Father.9 All divine gifts are

1 The following confessions of faith, from one who was certainly
not pledged to orthodoxy, are taken from the Life of Robert Browning,
by Mrs. SUTHERLAND OUR (p. 318): "If Shakspere was to come
into the room, we should all rise up to meet him ; but if Christ was
to come into the room, we should all fall down and try to kiss the
hem of His garment." And again : "He has repeatedly written, or
declared in the words . . , of Napoleon, ' I am an understander of
men, and He was no man.' He has even added, 'If He had been,
He would have been an impostor.' " See also LIDDON, Hampton
Lectures.

2 John iii. 5 ; 1 Cor. xii. 3.

3 John vi. 63. Of. Rom. viii. 10, 11 ; 2 Cor. iii. 6.

4 1 Cor. iii. 16 ; vi. 19. 2 Cor. iii. 3.

5 Rom. xv. 16 ; 1 Cor. vi. 11 ; 2 Thess. ii. 13 ; 1 Peter i. 2. The
same doctrine is taught in Rom. viii. 1-11 ; Gal. v. 16, 22.

6 Eph. ii. 22 ; iii. 16-18. 7 1 Johniv. 9, 16.

8 Rom. v. 5 ; Gal. v. 22 ; Col. i. 8.

9 Eph. ii. 18. Cf. Eph. iii. 12, where exactly the same words are
spoken of Christ.

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF GOD. 99

bestowed by Him.1 In fact, not to multiply quotations, we
find Him, though distinguished from the Father and the
Son, associated with them nevertheless in the work of
salvation on terms of perfect equality. And so continually
do we find the three Persons spoken of interchangeably
as effecting that work, that the only interpretation we can
put on the language of the New Testament — our only source
of information on a point so inaccessible to human reason —
is that these three Persons are One in Essence and in Will,
and that — except so far as the eternal distinctions which
we have already pointed out are concerned — there is no
difference or mark of distinction whatever between them. 2

And thus we are brought back to our original proposition
concerning the Oneness of God. If we believe in a Trinity,
it is a Trinity in Unity. This truth is as emphatically
taught in the New Testament as in the Old. Our Lord
seals with His authority the affirmation in the Mosaic Law
of the Unity of God.3 He declares His own unity with
the Father.4 St. Paul is equally emphatic on this point.
"There is no God but one." There is "One God the
Father, of Whom are all things, and we unto Him; and
one Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom are all things, and
we through Him."5 There is "one Lord," and yet "One
God and Father of all, Who is over all, and through all,
and in all."6 There is "One God," and "one Mediator
between God and man, Christ Jesus, Who is Himself Man."7

1 1 Cor. xii. 1-11.

2 See p. 89. Compare also Isa. xliii. 11, " I am Jehovah, and
beside Me there is no Saviour," with the continual application of the
term "Saviour" to Jesus Christ in the N.T. Also, Jesus Christ is
said (Rev. xxii. 16) to do what the Lord God is said to do in Rev.
xxii. 6, namely, to "send His angel."

3 Mark xii. 29. 4 John x. 30 ; xvii. 11, 21, 22.

6 1 Cor. viii. 4, 6. 6 Eph. iv. 5, 6.

7 1 Tim. ii. 5. Cf. Gal. in. 20. 1 Tim. i. 17.

100 THE CREED.

St. James commends the belief that God is One.1 Thus
a belief in the Unity of God is in no way impaired or
obscured by the Christian doctrine of the Trinity; but
so entire and indivisible is that Unity, that each Person
in this most sacred Trinity may be regarded as inter
penetrated by the Being of the other.2 There is but one

1 James ii. 19. He regards the truth as so obvious that even the
devils share it. See also Jude 4, 25.

2 So Athanasius seems to imply. " If there is a Trinity, as is
indeed the case, it has been shown to be indivisible and not unlike ;
its holiness, its eternity, its unchangeable nature must be One."
(Ad Serapion, I. 30.) Speaking in the same passage of the baptismal
formula, he adds, " So the Holy Trinity, being the same in Itself, and
united to Itself, hath, in Itself, nothing of things created ; and the
Unity of the Trinity is Itself indivisible, and the faith resting on (et's)
It is one." And again, speaking of the Apostolic benediction, he
says, ' ' the grace (or favour) is given from the Father, through the
Son, in the Holy Ghost. For as the grace given is given by (or
through) the Son from the Father, so the fellowship (Koivuvla) of the
gift would not be in us, except in the Holy Spirit. For, partaking of
this, we have the love of the Father, and the grace (or favour) of the
Son, and the fellowship of the Spirit Himself. It is thus demonstrated
that the working (frtpyeia) of the Trinity is one." In the treatise De
Trinitate et Spiritu Sancto, believed by the Benedictine Editor to be
his, but existing only in a Latin version, he once more deduces from
the words of the Angel to the Blessed Virgin at the Annunciation, the
conclusion that the working of the Trinity is one. Basil (Epistle 38)
is still more definite. While declaring that "the Persons in the
Blessed Trinity, faith in Whom has been handed down in the Church,
are altogether distinct and separate in what constitutes the peculiarity
(Idi6rr)s) of their persons," there is nevertheless, he says, "a close and
indissoluble communion between them in the boundless, incompre
hensible (d/carciXT/Trrov), and uncreated Nature, which is common to
all." We must not, he continues, think of the Blessed Trinity as
" cut off, or divided, in any way, as if we could conceive of the Son
apart from the Father, or separate the Spirit, in thought, from the
Son ; but there is an unutterable and unthinkable (aKarariijTos, i.e.,
that of which adequate conceptions cannot be formed) communion, as
well as distinction, to be acknowledged between them, so that we
must neither divide the conjunction (yvvex^) °f Nature, in conse-

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF GOD. 101

Divine Essence common to all three. Therefore their Being
and Working is ever harmonious and incapable of conflict.
Each sacred Person has His own place and function in this
mysterious and inscrutable mystery of Being. The Father
is the source, the Son is the stream, the Spirit the living,
energizing influence which flows from both.1 But "these
three are One " ; one Energy, one Intelligence, one Wisdom,
one Creative Mind, one Life, one Love. "He, therefore,
that wills to be safe, let him thus think of the Trinity."2
Nor is such a belief a mere dry dogma, propounded to us as
a simple intellectual conception in no degree bearing upon
the life. It is a truth which has the closest possible
conception with everything we do.3 For, as we have

quence of the difference of hypostasis (i.e., that distinction at the
root of being which we term personality), nor confound the tokens of
distinction in consequence of the community in relation to essence."
The language here is very difficult to translate. The word translated
"conjunction" is literally that which holds together, a bond of
union, while the words translated ' ' tokens of distinction " is literally
distinction (or individuality} of tokens (or indications), by which is
apparently meant the signs of distinction or personality mentioned in
the Scriptures, when speaking of the Blessed Trinity. The doctrine
here enunciated is known to theology as the 7re/Hx<fy"?<™> °r mutual
indwelling of the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity. Bishop Bull
ably explains this truth.

1 If, as Bishop Pearson shows, the ancient Fathers "made a con
siderable difference between the Person of the Father, of Whom are
all things, and the Person of the Son, by Whom are all things," it
was, according to him, because "the difference consisteth properly in
this, that as the branch is from the root, and the river from the
fountain, and by their origination from them receive that being which
they have ; whereas the root receiveth nothing from the branch, or
fountain from the river ; so the Son is from the Father, receiving His
subsistence by generation from Him ; the Father is not from the Son, as
being what He is from none." On the Creed, p. 38. See also chap. IV.
sees. ii. iii.

2 " Quicunque vult salvus esse, ita de Trinitate sentiat."
Athanasian Creed.

3 ' ' Life, light, love— in the passage upward of these, the one up to
the other, we have the shadow on the dial of that truth which, in the

102 THE CREED.

seen, according to the authoritative teaching of Christ and
His Apostles, each Person is specially associated with the
work of salvation. From the Father as a source, all life,
created or Divine, eternally proceeds. To the Son is
committed the work of Revelation, Redemption, and
Restoration. The Spirit carries this work out in the
heart of the individual believer. And thus we are not
simply asked to believe, in the words of the Athanasian
Creed, that "the Father is God, the Son is God, and the
Holy Ghost is God ; and yet they are not three Gods, but
One God " ; but we are exhorted, in the words of the
Church Catechism — more practical, yet not less true — to
put our trust "in God the Father, Who hath made us and
all the world; in God the Son, Who redeemed us and all
mankind, and in God the Holy Ghost, Who sanctifieth us
and all the elect people of God."

SECTION II.
"THE FATHER"

Bishop Pearson says that "the ancient doctors of the
Church have not stuck to call the Father the Origin, the
Cause, the Author, the Root, the Fountain, and the Head of
the Son, or the whole Divinity."1 That He is the source

Scriptures of truth, is the Son proceeding from the Father, and the
Spirit from the Son. A Triune God is a necessity thus of science as
much as of faith." HEARD, Old and New Theology, p. 73.

1 On the Creed, pp. 37, 38. He cites Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus,
Cyril of Jerusalem, and Cyril of Alexandria, on behalf of the term
apxtf as applied to the Father in relation to the Son. The latter says
that "the Living Word shone forth, as light from the sun." St.
Augustine and St. Hilary are cited as applying the term prindpium
to the Father. For the use of the word cause (atria) he cites
Athanasius, Basil, and John of Damascus. For author he only cites
Latin authorities, as Hilary and Augustine. For root, Tertullian,
Basil, and Cyril of Alexandria. For fountain, Cyril of Jerusalem,
Yigilius, Basil, Cyril of Alexandria, and the Acts of the Council of
Nicaea. For head, the first Sirmian Creed, accepted by Hilary as

THE ESSENTIAL NATUIlE OP GOD. 103

whence all things visible and invisible, including even the
other Persons in the Blessed Trinity, proceed, is a point
which scarcely requires demonstration.1 But the word
Father contains in it something more than origin, and the
thoughts suggested by it. It implies benevolence, care,
love, such as nature dictates to those whom we call fathers
on earth. Yet, inasmuch as the conception of love as one
of the most essential of God's attributes was not clearly
discerned until Christ came to reveal it, we find a very
sparing use of the term Father as applied to God in the
Old Testament.2 In the New Testament, however-, the
Fatherhood of God at once blossoms out into full propor
tions. Not only is God the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and He the Only-begotten Son of the Father, but
God is our Father also, by virtue of the union with Christ
which is the privilege of every member of His Church.
It needs not to cite passages in proof of these truths. One
or other of them, frequently both, are to be found expressly
stated in almost every page of the writings of the New
Covenant, from the first discourse of our Blessed Lord, in
which God is repeatedly called our Father in heaven, and
in which we are bidden to address Him in prayer as "our
Father," down to the latest of those writings, the Gospel
and Epistles of St. John.3 Thus it is to the revelation of
God in Jestis Christ that the conception of God as a

orthodox, at least on this point, Ruffinus, Augustine, Chrysostom,
Cyril of Alexandria, and Theodoret on 1 Cor. xi. 3, which they apply
to Christ in His Godhead. The whole note should be carefully studied
by those who desire to expound the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.

1 See Gen. ii. 4 ; Job xxxviii. 7, 28 ; Mai. ii. 10 ; Acts xvii. 28 ;
1 Cor. viii. 6 ; Heb. xii. 9. [This fundamental fact has hardly been
so clearly discerned in the "West as in the East.]

2 Only in 1 Chron. xxix. 10 ; Isa. Ixiii. 16, Ixiv. 8 ; Jer. xxxi. 9 ;
Mai. i. 6, ii. 10. Isa. ix. 6 refers to Christ as the Second Adam.

3 It is worthy of remark that God is only once spoken of as Father
in the Apocalypse. In that vision the phrase " God and the Lamb "
takes the place of the Father and the Son.

104

THE CREED.

Father especially belongs. And to that revelation the
ideas of love, favour, protection, mercy, forgiveness in His
relations to us are due. We shall see hereafter how the
Life and Death of Christ have witnessed, and do eternally
witness, to this most blessed truth, and how it is through
our participation in that Life and Death alone that Christ's
Father becomes our Father, and that we are able to claim
the privileges which flow from true sonship to Him. It is
only necessary to observe how entirely the successful
preaching of Christ's Gospel depends on the careful
teaching of the universal Fatherhood of God.1

SECTION III.
"ALMIGHTY"

The proper signification of this term, as Bishops Pearson
and Westcott remind us, is not Omnipotent, but ruler of
all. In fact, it is necessary to observe that the ordinary
conception of God as able to do all things, is unscriptural
and untrue. There are many things which God cannot do,
for, if He did them, He would cease to be God. Thus the
Scriptures tell us He "cannot lie,"2 He "cannot change,"3
He "cannot deny Himself."4 He cannot do wrong in any
way, otherwise He would not be good. It is therefore of
some importance to remember that our profession of belief

1 It is needless to cite passages from the New Testament affirming
the Fatherhood of God. We may take as instances Matt. v. 45, 48 ;
vi. 1, 4, 6, 8 ; vii. 1 ; xi. 25. John vi. 37 ; xx. 17. Acts i. 4 ; ii. 33.
Rom. vi. 4. 1 Cor. viii. 6. Eph. iii. 14. 1 Peter i. 3. 1 John i. 3.

3 Titus i. 2 ; Heb. vi. 18.

3 Num. xxiii. 19 ; 1 Sam. xv. 29 ; Ps. cii. 27 ; Mai. iii. 6 ;
Rom. xi. 29; Heb. i. 12; James i. 17. The passages which speak
of God as changing His mind, or "repenting," really refer to a
change of attitude, or purpose, or conduct, on the part of others, not
of God. 4 2 Tim. ii. 13.

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF GOD. 105

in " God the Father Almighty " requires some qualification,
that we are bound to explain to those under our care that
God's Omnipotence is conditioned by other attributes of
His Nature, and that when, as in the First Article of
Religion, we speak of God as " of infinite Power, Wisdom,
and Goodness," we are to regard His exercise of that
infinite power as conditioned by the concomitant attributes
of Wisdom and Goodness. The importance of bearing this
in mind will be seen when it is remembered how popular
theology has been accustomed to magnify the sovereignty
of God to the prejudice of other even more necessary
attributes, and how the "Nay, but, 0 man, who art thou
that repliest against God" of the Apostle Paul, has been
pressed in a direction, and to a degree, which he would
unquestionably have regarded as blasphemous.

God's attribute as the ruler of all1 is so closely connected
with the work of creation, that it is best discussed under
that head. We confine ourselves therefore here to those
passages of Holy Writ which speak of God as a King, and
attribute to Him universal dominion. Both these ideas are
expressed by David in his striking prayer at the dedication
of the gifts for the temple. "Thine, 0 Lord, is the
greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory,
and the majesty; for all that is in the heaven and in the
earth is Thine. Thine is the kingdom, 0 God, and Thou
art exalted as Head above all."2 And again, by Daniel,
" His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions
shall serve Him."3 Once more, " The Lord sat as King upon
the Flood, yea, the Lord sitteth as King for ever."4 And
yet once more, St. Paul speaks of Christ as "made to sit
at God's Right Hand in the heavenly places, far above all

1 iravTOKpaTup. Translated " All-sovereign " by Bishop WESTCOTT,
Historic Faith, p. 36.
8 1 Chroii. xxix. 11. 3 Daniel vii. 27. 4 Ps. xxix. 10.

106 THE CREED.

rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every
name that is named, not only in this world, but that which
is to come, and as having all things put under His feet."1
A few words may be added on the teaching of Scripture
in regard to God's moral government of the world. This fact
— for it is a fact — may be inferred from the study of history
and human nature. The first part of Bishop Butler's Analogy
is taken up with the statement of the general principles
of that government. The field is too wide to be entered
upon here. We have only space for noting some of the
declarations of Scripture which are thoroughly in accord
with the results of observation. God, we learn, controls
the course of history. The peoples of the world are in
His Hands, as the clay in the hand of the potter. His
treatment of them is conditioned by their attitude towards
Him.2 He does as He pleases with the inhabitants of the
earth, and none — not even the mightiest of monarchs — can
resist His Will.3 And this because He controls the action
of every individual. In His Hand is "our breath and all
our ways."4 He not only searches the heart, and tries the
reins, but He rules our hearts, and overrules our plans.5
There is, however, this difference between God's rule over
the moral, and His rule over the material world. In the
latter His rule is not only general, but particular. It
descends to the minutest details. Disobedience to His
Laws, though it be but infinitesimal, is an absolute im-

1 Eph. i. 21, 22. Passages in support of this assertion may be
multiplied indefinitely by means of a Reference Bible, by referring
to passages where God is spoken of as King, or where the extent
of His dominion is mentioned. See, amongst others, Ps. xxii. 28 ;
xxiv. 1, 2 ; Ixxv. 7 ; xcv. 3. Isa. xl. 21-26. Jcr. xviii. 7-10.

2 Jer. xviii. 1-10. Cf. Jer. i. 10.

3 Dan. iv. 35. Cf. Isa. xl. 15-17. 4 Dan. v. 23.

5 Prov. xvi. 1, 9 ; xix. 21 ; xx. 24 ; xxi. 1. Isa. xxix. 16 ; xlv. 9.
Jer. x. 23.

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OP GOD. 107

possibility. In the moral world this is not the case. To
creatures endowed with free-will, disobedience is permitted.
But it is only permitted within certain limits. All human
actions are under God's general control, and no individual
disobedience is allowed to affect the steady working out of
the Divine plan as a whole. Where man's disobedience
would affect that plan, such disobedience is prevented.
But in evil, as well as good, we are held responsible, not
only for our acts, but also for our intentions. The bad
man is none the less bad because his malevolent intentions
have been frustrated. But he is not permitted to indulge
his evil inclinations so far as to interfere with the Divine
decree that in this world, no matter how great may be
the amount of wickedness in it, "all things" shall "work
together for good to them that love God."1

SECTION IV,

"MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH, AND OF ALL THINGS
VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE."

The truth embodied in these words is that with which
Holy Scripture starts. "In the beginning," we are told,
"God created the heavens and the earth."2 That is to say,
at some indefinite period in the past, of the distance of
which from the present time we know nothing, God called
the visible universe into being. Periods of unknown
duration seem implied in the course of the narration. First
of all, the earth was formless and empty, or waste.3 Dark
ness dwelt upon the deep. Then new forces appear to have
arisen to give order to what hitherto had been a chaos.
The Spirit of God brooded upon the expanse of waters.4

1 Rom. viii. 28. a Gen. i. 1.

8 This is the meaning of the expression in Gen. i. 2.

4 See p. 26 1»

108 THE CREED.

Then followed the still more defined work of the creative
energy, and order and organic life began to appear upon the
earth. We are not to regard the " days " of the Mosaic
narrative of the Creation as literal days of twenty-four
hours. Even in the ages of Dean Colet the absurdity of
such an idea was clearly seen.1 It is precluded by the fact
that the sun is spoken of as created on the fourth of these
" days." And we know that our present day is the result
of a revolution of the earth upon its axis during the
twenty-four hours of which the day consists. The " days "
of the Mosaic account are periods, each being an advance
upon a former condition.2 Neither are we bound of
necessity to regard the Mosaic " days * as being in con
secutive order. They most probably represent, not the
order of time — though they are confessed on all hands to
approach pretty closely to this — but the order of thought in
the mind of the writer. If this be so, there is no need
for us to enter into elaborate apologies on behalf of the
chronological accuracy of the first chapter of Genesis. It is
sufficient if we see in it the assertion of an elementary fact
on which all true religion reposes, and must needs repose —
the orderly work of the Divine Intelligence in shaping out
the universe in which we live, according to a definite plan.
The story of creation, as told in Genesis i., attributes to
God's Wisdom, His Foresight, and His Love, the phenomena
in the midst of which we "live, move, and have our being."
If this be not the case, then the natural order does but
conceal beneath it a moral chaos. We need scarcely
multiply Scripture references upon a point which meets
us in so distinct a manner on the very threshold of the

1 See his letters to Radulphus.

2 This is involved in the language of the original. "And there
was evening, and there was morning: a first," "second," up to a
"sixth day." (See R.V.)

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OP GOD. 109

study of Scripture. But it is necessary to remember that
if we are told, as we are in our Creeds, that the worlds
were made by the Son, it is simply because this His work
was the expression of the Will of the Eternal Father.
This we learn from such passages as 2 Kings xix. 1 5 ;
Nehemiah ix. 6; Job xxxviii. 4-12; Psalms xxxiii. 6-9,
cxlviii. 5, 6; Proverbs iii. 19, viii. 27-30; Isaiah xl. 12;
Acts xvii. 24 ; Romans i. 20 ; Ephesians iii. 9 ; Hebrews
iii. 4; Revelation iv. 11, x. 6.

The world thus created is not left to itself, as some
ancient philosophers vainly imagined. It enjoys the
blessing of the constant care and untiring energy of its
Creator.1 This we learn from innumerable passages of
Scripture. One of the most striking is Job xxxviii. 16-41.
It is too long to quote, but it pursues into minute detail
the preservative activity of the Lord of heaven and earth,
and ascribes the various phenomena of nature to His un
ceasing guidance. The same truth is taught in Job xi. 6 ;
Psalm xcv. 4, 5 ; Proverbs xxx. 4 ; Isaiah vi. 3, xl. 22 ;
Jeremiah v. 24; Daniel v. 23; Matthew vi. 26-32; Romans
xi. 36; Col. i. 17. How He acts, and through what inter
mediaries, in the preservation and carrying on of the
universe, we are not precisely told. Some men of science
have declared that they can only attribute the phenomena
of nature to the intervention of unseen, but ever active,
intelligences, such as the angels are represented as being in
Scripture.2 But however this may be, it is true, as has
been already stated,3 that the only intelligible conception
of Force which has ever been put forth by experts is that
it is the exercise of Will. Such a Will, we are taught by
Scripture, is ever at work in producing the phenomena we
see around us. Scientific observation confirms the teaching

1 Ps. cxxi. 3-8. Of. Isa. xl. 28.

2 Unseen Universe, p. 89. 3 See p. 57.

110 THE CREED.

of Scripture on this point. The modus operandi of that
Will — the means whereby Spirit acts on matter — will
probably always remain a mystery. But candid philosophic
thinkers are ready to admit that while we are able to
observe that given forces act by given laws or rules, the
causes of those rules are as obscure to us as is the idea
of the Being of God.1

The tendency of modern scientific inquiry, until very
lately, has been to call attention exclusively to phenomena,
and to keep their causes rigidly out of sight till they have
practically come to be altogether ignored. But the order
of things we see around us must either have been eternal
or it must have had a beginning. And that beginning
must have been due to a Creative Act, not of the natural,
but of the supernatural order. It is clear, too, that the
various stages in the history of creation — to which geological
investigation bears witness as direct as does the narrative
of creation in Genesis — as well as the marked distinction
between the forms of life in existence in those periods,
may not unreasonably be thought to point to successive
interferences by the Divine Will with the order of things
previously established — interferences which, as they were
not in the ordinary course of nature, must have been
above and beyond it. The evolution of species, moreover,
though proceeding on a definite plan, and in accordance
with very clearly marked types, gives some ground for
the belief that each species was grafted upon its prede
cessor by the interference of the Creative Will, once more

1 See Sir G. G. STOKES' Gifford Lectures, second series, p. 59. He
regards the view of natural phenomena, which makes us " feel as if
we were in the presence of some mysterious power, the nature of
which transcends our investigations, but which conducts us into a
region in which lie thought, consciousness, will," as "more conducive
to a reverential tone of mind than the hypothesis " of the materialist.
(See also p. 53.)

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF GOD. Ill

by an act outside the ordinary course of nature. Thus
the assertion of the Creed, that whatever exists has come
into existence by a fiat of the Divine Will, seems likely, in
the end, to be as distinctly recognized by scientific thinkers
as by Christian believers.1 I do not propose to discuss the
question of Evolution. In some shape or other it is ad
mitted by every scientific investigator. But the theory
of Evolution by Natural Selection in any shape which
practically ignores or minimises the action of the Creative
Will, is not gaining ground in the world of science; and
the aspect of the field of scientific inquiry leads to the
conclusion that the establishment of entire harmony
between religion and science is very speedily to be ex
pected, if, indeed, it may not be said to have already
arrived.

The question of the abnormal action of the Divine Will,
as displayed in miracles, may fitly receive a word of mention
here, since the idea of the miraculous is involved in the idea
of creation itself. It is impossible, as has been already said,
to enter at length into the arguments for the possibility of
miracles, still less into the evidence that they have actually
occurred. But, as the Scriptures are committed to the actual
occurrence of miracles, and as it has been industriously
represented that the order of nature is invariable, and that,
therefore, the impossibility of miracles has been conclusively
established, it is well to know that Professor Huxley, an
authority whose impartiality cannot be questioned, has
admitted that such a position cannot be maintained.2 The

1 Several able papers, which support this view, have been read
before the Victoria Institute. See Transactions, Vol. xxviii. Professor
Romanes, too, as we learn from the Preface to Canon GORE'S Life, was
inclined, in his latter days, to admit the force of this view.

2 Essay on Hume, p. 133. "To put the argument in its native
absurdity, that which never has happened never can happen without
a violation of the laws of nature."

112 THE GREED.

question, therefore, of the occurrence of miracles resolves
itself into one of evidence. And it can hardly be denied
that the tendency of the latest scientific investigation is
in favour of the probability that miracles have actually
occurred. If we are quite unable to give a satisfactory
explanation of the causes of the phenomena which surround
us — and it can hardly be denied that we are unable to do
so — we are, a fortiori, unable to deny that the Will to
which these phenomena must ultimately be ascribed could
vary them at pleasure. Besides, it is not the order of
nature itself which is invariable, for it is capable of in
finite variation ; but the laws of the forces which govern it.
Now our experience shows that will can bring new forces
into play, the laws of which are not easily ascer tamable.
If our will can do this, it is clear that the Will which
governs phenomena may be able to do this to a far greater
extent. And the effect of these unknown forces, with laws
which for the present are undiscoverable, might be very
largely to modify phenomena. Thus, while the credibility
of each particular miracle depends upon the evidence
adduced for it, the credibility of the Scripture narrative,
which involves miracles, is included in the belief in God
as "the Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things
visible and invisible."

And so we believe in One God in Three Persons, the
ineffable Trinity in Unity, the Source of all that is, the
Power which guides the universe and keeps it in being, at
once inhabiting and transcending all creation, revealed in
the laws of nature, yet extending infinitely beyond them —
the "King eternal, incorruptible, invisible, the only God,
to Whom be glory for ever and ever."

1 See this question treated more fully in my Miracles, Special
Providences, and Prayer.

CHAPTER IV.

THE REVELATION OF GOD IN THE PERSON OF
JESUS CHRIST

SECTION I.
"AND IN ONE LOBD JESUS CHRIST*

THE Apostle St. John, in the opening words of his
Gospel, which, as has already been said, may be taken
as in a certain sense a profession of faith, insists on the
unknowableness of God as He is in Himself; and he does
this in order that we may learn the necessity of a revelation
of His Nature and Purpose. "No man hath seen God at
any time ; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom
of the Father, He hath declared Him."1 And He "de
clared" God by "becoming flesh," by "dwelling among
us," so that by " beholding His glory, the glory of the Only-
begotten," we could, so far as our limited faculties will

1 The expression is a remarkable one in the original : 6 &v ets rbv
KO\TTOV TOV Trdrpos ; i.e., He Who exists into the bosom of the Father.
The preposition eis, if we do not accept the view of some authorities
that ets in St. John, as sometimes in modern Greek, is equivalent
to £vt apparently refers to the Word as looked upon from a human
point of view, and from that point of view as being, as it were,
projected by our imagination into the Divine Being, instead of, as in
the second clause in the verse, coming forth from God, and making
Him known to man. Canon Liddon's view is that the Only-begotten
Son is "ever contemplating, ever, as it were, moving towards the
Father in the ceaseless activities of an ineffable communion." £amp~
ton Lectures, p. 349. For ^^o-aro see p. 132, note 1.

113 I

114 THE CREED.

allow, attain to a knowledge of Him Who is invisible.1
The second division of the Creed, therefore, deals with
the revelation of God in the Person of His Son Jesus
Christ. The Gospel, or, as it is sometimes called, the
scheme of salvation, has been summed up in the following
words : " God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto
Himself."2 We have first to deal with His Person, and
then with His work of reconciliation. The present section
refers to the Person of Christ. The first point to be noticed
here is the term "Lord." We are taught to believe in
" one God, the Father Almighty," and in " one Lord Jesus
Christ." It is not by any means certain that the word
" Lord " here is to be regarded as equivalent to the Hebrew
Jahveh, or Jehovah, as we have contended in the preceding
chapter it is sometimes to be regarded. The question of
the Divinity of Christ will be approached presently. Here the
notion clearly is of His Lordship. St. Paul, after mention
ing how the Name of Jesus is "above every name," and
that at that "Name every knee should bow, of things in
heaven, and things on earth, and things under the
earth," goes on to say, "and let every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."3
We need not insist on this prerogative of Lordship. It is
inseparable from the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ,
on which we have already dwelt, and which is so distinctly
affirmed in the subsequent clauses of the Nicene Creed.4

We proceed to a consideration of what is involved in the
Name Jesus,' and in the title Christ. And first, of the
Name Jesus. It is the Latinized form5 of the name Joshua,

1 John i. 14.

2 Or, as some would render, "God, in Christ, was reconciling";
2 Cor. v. 19.

3 Phil. ii. 10, 11. Of. 1 Cor. xv. 24-28 ; Eph. i. 20-22.

4 See Matt. xxii. 43 ; Mark ii. 28 ; John xiii. 13 ; Acts ii. 36, x. 3G ;
Rom. xiv. 9 ; 1 Cor. ii. 8, viii. 6, xii. 3, xv. 47, &c.

6 That form, however, is itself due to the Greek language.

THE REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. 115

or Jeshua, or, more fully, Jehoshua, which we find in the
Old Testament. The meaning of the word is "Jehovah"
(or Jah) "shall save." And in the Gospel of St. Matthew,
originally written, let us rememher, in the Hehrew tongue,
we have the words, "Thou shalt call His Name Jehovah
shall save" — Jehoshua', no doubt, in the original — "for
He shall save His people from their sins."1 But when we
go on to consider what is meant by being saved, we enter
upon a larger question than is sometimes supposed.
Bishop Pearson remarks that "the best of the Latins"
— including Cicero, as he adds in his note — "thought the
Greek word crwfw so pregnant and comprehensive, that the
Latin tongue had no single word able to express it."2 The
same may be said of our own tongue, for we have to resort
to various words in order to render it into English. For
the Greek word not only conveys the idea of safety, but
it is frequently used of the healing of the sick.3 The
Hebrew word has a wider sense still. It often means
deliverance from physical and natural peril, such as victory

1 Matt. i. 21. When we remember that all the original preachers
of the Gospel were Jews, we shall see how continually this idea of
the force of the Name given to the Redeemer was present to their
minds. St. Peter, in his address to the rulers in Acts iv., after
reciting the fact that the Name of Jehoshua', through faith in that
Name, had imparted healing to the lame man, goes on, " Neither is
there salvation" (Jeshu'ah) "in any other, for there is none other
name given under heaven, given among men, whereby we may be
saved" (Niwashea5. The letter N is simply the sign of the passive
voice in Hebrew). St. Paul, in his address to the Jews and proselytes
at Antioch (Acts xiii.), says that of the seed of David hath God
raised up a Saviour (Moshea'. The letter M denotes a participial
form in Hebrew) according to His promise. And St. John represents
Christ Himself as saying that God sent His Son into the world, in
order that the world through Him might be saved (Jiwashea7).
John iii. 17.

2 On the Creed, p. 73.

8 e.g., Matt. ix. 22 ; Mark v. 28, 34, vi. 56, &c.

116 THE CREED.

in a battle, and the like.1 We have, therefore, to be on
our guard against using the word in a conventional and
contracted sense, a fate which has too often befallen the
health-giving words of Scripture when they have become
the commonplaces of religious phraseology.2 We are
encouraged, on the contrary, by the use of the word in
the original languages of Holy Scripture, to see included
in the word Saviour not only the idea of One who delivers
us from the penalty of sin, but of One Who imparts to us
perfect soundness of character and life, Who delivers
us out of temptation, and Who gives us victory in our
conflicts with evil in our own hearts, and in the world
around us. By what means He is pleased to do this, we
shall learn when we enter upon the consideration of the
redemptive work of Christ, and the sanctifying work of
His Spirit. At present we may do well to note the fact
that the very name of our Eedeemer implies safety, moral
and spiritual health, and victory over sin and Satan.8

We next come to the ideas involved in the name Christ.
This is primarily a title, but it practically is often, in the
New Testament, equivalent to a proper name. It is,
however, specially marked out at times, by the Greek con
struction, as a title.4 When it is written without the
article, " Christ " is doubtless a proper name ; though, even

1 e.g.. Judges iii. 9, 15 ; 1 Chron. xi. 14, &c. In the last-cited
passage the literal rendering is, "And Jehovah saved them" (with)
"a great salvation" ; i.e., gave them a great victory.

2 See pp. 142, 144.

3 Joshua, the great captain who led Israel into the promised land,
as well as Joshua (or Jeshua), the son of Josedech the High Priest
(Ezra iii. 2 ; Hag. i. 1, and ii. 2 ; Zech. iii. 1, &c.), were alike types of
Christ, the one foreshowing Christ as our Captain in the struggle
with sin, the other as the rehuilder of our Zion, and as bearing the
burden of our guilt.

4 As in Matt. xxiv. 5, xxvi. 63 ; Luke ii, 26 ; John i. 41 ; and else
where.

THE REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. 117

when thus used, it indicates rather the office and work than
the human Person of Christ. When it has the article, it
means the Christ, the Anointed One, Him Who was
promised to the Jews, and Who, when the fulness of
time was come, was sent to redeem mankind. When
Jesus and Christ are combined, as they frequently are,
we are bidden to look both on the Person and office of
Christ. But the combination appears in several forms.
The first and most common, " Jesus Christ," is used simply
as a proper name, though, of course, the significance of
both names is suggested to the mind.1 When "Christ"
is prefixed to "Jesus," the idea of the Person is subor
dinated to the title. When the article is prefixed in this
collocation, the idea is "the Christ," namely "Jesus."2
And, again, we have "Jesus the Christ," where the idea
clearly is that Jesus is He "of Whom Moses in the law,
and the prophets, did write."3 Such fine distinctions,
however, can hardly ever be expressed in a translation.
We must have recourse to the original to catch these
subtler touches of Apostolic teaching.

The meaning of the word Christ is Anointed; the
Hebrew word is Messiah, or, rather, Mashiach. This
word, however, is only directly given as the title of the
Promised Deliverer in one place — Daniel ix. 26. In other
places, such as the Messianic Psalms ii., xviii., xx., &c.,
it doubtless refers to Christ, though it has, like many other
Messianic prophecies, a more immediate reference to some
other person. The name Christ, however, so continually used in

1 Bishop HARVEY GOODWIN (Foundations of the Faith, p. 70)
remarks on the fact that St. Matthew and St. Mark call our Lord
"Jesus Christ" at the opening of their Gospels only, and never again
throughout their course. He was not "marked out" (6pi<r6evTos) as
the anointed "Son of God" till after His resurrection from the dead.
(Rom. i. 4.)

2 As in Acts v. 42. 8 John i. 45.

L18 THE CEEED.

the New Testament, involves some important considerations
concerning the office of Him Who bore it. For anointing,
among the Jews, was used at the consecration of the
prophet, the priest, and the king. We find the custom,
in the case both of the prophet and the king, in 1 Kings
xix. 15, 16.1 It is ordered in the case of the priest in
Exodus xxviii. 41. 2 That we are not mistaken in attributing
these offices to Christ will appear from passages such as
Isaiah Ixi. 1, applied to Himself by Christ in Luke iv. 21.
Here the prophetical office of teaching with authority is
attributed to Christ, and we know that He claimed to speak
with such authority.3 That Christ was a Priest, is a doctrine
to the setting forth of which the whole Epistle to the
Hebrews is given up.4 That Christ also claimed the kingly
prerogative is plain enough on many accounts. Not only
did the angel speak of Him to the Virgin5 as one who
should occupy the throne of His forefather David ; not
only does the evangelist apply to Him, at His triumphal
entry into Jerusalem, the words of the prophet Zechariah
to the daughter of Zion, " Behold, thy King cometh " ; 6
but He Himself does not hesitate to claim the title in
His conversation with Pilate.7 And the vision which
beholds Him going forth in His might, conquering and
to conquer, sees "upon His vesture" (R.V., garment) "and
upon His thigh a name written, King of kings, and Lord

1 Saul is not directly said to have been " anointed " king, but he is
spoken of directly afterwards as "Jehovah's anointed," in 1 Sam.
xii. 3, 5 ; as also in 1 Sam. xxiv. 6, 10, xxvi. 11, 16, 23 ; 2 Sam.
i. 14, 16. For David's anointing see 1 Sam. xvi. 13. For Solomon's,

1 Kings i. 39 ; 1 Chron. xxix. 22. For that of Joash, 2 Kings xi. 12 ;

2 Chron. xxiii. 11.

2 See also xxix. 7 ; xxx. 30 ; xl. 15.

3 Frequently, in the Sermon on the Mount, "But I say unto you."
See also Matt. vii. 29 ; Mark i. 22 ; Luke iv. 32.

4 See also below, "was crucified."

5 Luke i. 32, 33. 6 Matt. xxi. 4, 5. 7 Jolm xviii. 37.

THE REVELATION OP GOD IN JEStIS CHRIST. 119

of lords."1 He to Whom we attribute these titles was,
moreover, we must not forget, an historical personage. To
this an expression in the Creed bears witness, of the sig
nificance of which we ought not to permit ourselves to
lose sight. "He was crucified," we are told, "under
Pontius Pilate." This fixes our thoughts upon an epoch
of political and intellectual activity, by no means favour
able to the growth of legends or hallucinations. The
fierce light of inquiry and publicity blazed on the land in
which He was born. And though, as a general rule, the
haughty Koman and the sceptical Greek refused to inquire
into the story of God having appeared in Judaea in the
form of a crucified malefactor, it was not because His
messengers were afraid to challenge inquiry into the truth
of the story they told, but because of the extraordinary and
improbable character of that story in itself. From the
point of view of Greeks and Romans, moreover, the political
and intellectual insignificance of Judaea gave additional
improbability to that story. Yet the first preachers of
the Gospel boldly declared that He of Whom they spoke
had been witnessed to by the prophets, as well as that
He was risen from the dead.2 And the heath&n historians
Tacitus and Suetonius, who both wrote at the end of the
first century A.D., attest the fact that, at the moment of
His appearance, mankind were expecting a great conqueror
to arise in Judaea.3 We shall recur to the evidence for
the Gospel story, when we come to treat of the Resurrec
tion. We will, therefore, content ourselves for the present
with the remark that the Creed presents Jesus Christ to us,
not as a mythical, but as an historical personage, Whose place

1 Rev. xix. 16. Sec also Psalm ii. 6-8.

2 Acts iii. 18, 21, 24 ; x. 43 ; xxvi. 22, 27. Rom. i. 2 ; iii. 21. Those
who doubt the Jewish authorship of the Fourth Gospel should note the
coincidence with this line of thought displayed in John i. 45.

3 SUET., Vespasian. TACIT., Hist. v. 13.

120 THE CREED.

in history can be accurately fixed as to time by the fact of
His crucifixion, in accordance with a sentence pronounced by
a person well known as a servant of the Roman state. The
Jesus Christ in Whom we believe is thus affirmed not to
be a legendary or ideal Being, but a Person known to
contemporary history.

There can be no question whatever that the Creed repre
sents the history of Jesus Christ to have been a miraculous
one. And herein it fully agrees with the testimony of the
earliest and most authentic Christian writers. With one
accord they inculcate a belief in the supernatural Incarna
tion, the wondrous works, and the Resurrection of Christ.
If these facts be denied, those who deny them are compelled
to set aside, on their own authority, all the existing
biographies of Christ, and all the subsequent repetitions
of the narrative in later writers, and to invent a new history
for themselves.1 If they try, by denying its genuineness,
to evade the distinct assertions of the pre-existence and
Divinity of Christ, and of His bringing each member of
His Church into direct personal union with Himself, which
are found in the Gospel of St. John, they are still confronted
with the fact of the Resurrection, distinctly asserted in all
the Gospels, and with the miracle of the Incarnation as
definitely stated in two of the remaining three. They have
also to account for a similar phenomenon in every single
writing of the Apostolic age. We cannot, we repeat, enter
fully into the evidence for the authenticity of the gospel
narrative ; but we are entitled to say that no historical
event of importance has come down to us better attested
than the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ;

1 See this thought expanded in Bishop GOODWIN'S Foundations of
the Faith. Prebendary SADLER'S Lost Gospel shows that if any mis
chance should deprive us of the four biographies of Christ which we
at present possess, their narratives could be reconstructed from the
Christian literature of the ages immediately succeeding. See also p. 137.

THE REVELATION OP GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. 121

and that, when taken in conjunction with the marvellous
and fully-demonstrated power of His doctrine to inform and
stimulate the conscience, comfort the heart, and guide and
elevate the life of mankind, it rests upon evidence which
no man of fairness and intelligence can venture to put aside
as an idle tale. On the contrary, such a man will feel
bound to approach it with a respect proportioned to the
unrivalled influence it has had in promoting the welfare
of the human race.1

SECTION II.

"THE ONLY -BEGOTTEN SON OF GOD, BEGOTTEN OF HIS
FATHER BEFORE ALL WORLDS."

The equivalent for this article in the Apostles' Creed is
" His Only Son." And many divines have not unreasonably
contended that the doctrine more explicitly stated in the
]S~ieene Creed is necessarily involved in the less detailed
language of the Apostles' Creed. For the latter clearly
asserts that though many among mankind are called sons of
God, yet that there is a sense in which none other but Jesus
Christ can claim that title.

Following here in the steps of Bishop Pearson, we pro
pose first to show from Scripture that Christ existed before
his conception in the womb of the Blessed Virgin. That
conception, we are taught, was itself a miracle. It was
effected — so we learn from the angel's speech recorded by
St. Luke — by the special agency of the Holy Ghost.2 He

1 One remarkable result of tlie interesting "Parliament of
Religions," held at Chicago in 1893, was the demonstration of the
immense superiority, in all respects, of Christianity over any other
religious system.

2 Luke i. 35. Bishop Pearson, p. 165, note, discusses the dis
tinction of Augustine between de ipso and ex ipso. Augustine regards
de ipso as implying consubstantiality, whereas ex ipso might refer to
any act of creation. Bishop Pearson rejects the distinction, on the
ground that it has no foundation in the Greek. And he remarks

122 THE CREED.

Who was thus miraculously conceived had a previous
existence. St. John the Baptist, who was most certainly
acquainted with the events connected with the birth of
Christ, speaks of Him as "He that cometh from heaven,"1
and as having been " before " himself.2 Our Lord so speaks
of Himself. He is " the Living Bread which cometh down
from heaven."3 In ascending up to heaven, He did but
return to the place where He was before.4 He " came forth
from heaven."5 He was "before Abraham."6 If the readings
of many MSS. of the New Testament are to be credited,
He speaks of Himself as still in heaven while yet upon
earth.7 The same truth is involved in the repeated declara
tions that God made the worlds by the agency of His Son,
which will be further examined when we come to a sub
sequent article of the Creed.8

Thus the Jesus Christ in Whom we believe is no mere
man, but had a previous existence. What the nature of
this existence was has been partly shown already,9 and we

that the Manhood of Christ is not consubstantial with the Essence of
the Holy Spirit, but that Its existence was due to an act of creation.
Bishop Pearson further refers to the teaching of the schoolmen on
this point ; and his note is interesting, as illustrating the influence
of the Latin language on the growth of the doctrinal system of the
Western Church. The earliest writers, however, plainly teach the
miracle of the Incarnation, though with no theological subtleties.
Thus, IGNATIUS (Epistle to the Ephesians, 19) calls the Virginity of
Mary, the Birth of Christ, and His Death, rpia fj.v0Tir)pia Kpavyijs —
three mysteries which cry aloud, but were yet wrought by God in
silence. JUSTIN MARTYR (1st Apology, 21, 22) declares that Christ
was "produced without sexual union," and was "born of God in a
peculiar manner (Idiws), distinct from ordinary generation." And
IRENAEUS (Against Heresies, III. xxi. 10) distinctly denies that
Christ was begotten by Joseph.
1 John iii. 31. 2 John i. 15.

3 John vi. 33, 38, 41, 42, 51. Cf. iii. 13; viii. 42; xvii. 8.
Heb. i. 6.

4 John vi. 62. 5 John xvi. 28. Cf. xiii. 3. 6 John viii. 58.
7 John iii. 13. 8 See p. 135. 9 See p.' 92-99.

THE REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. 123

shall recur to the subject again in the next section. But,
for the present, we shall confine ourselves to showing, in
the next place, that the title "only-begotten Son" is
directly given to Christ in the Scriptures. The writer of
the Epistle to the Hebrews, when applying the words of
the second Psalm to Christ, declares that this privilege
of being begotten by God was shared with Christ by none
of the angels.1 He is expressly called the only-begotten
Son.2 The term " first-begotten," or " brought forth," is
also applied to Him,3 and in one of the passages in which
He is so called He is stated to have existed anterior to the
whole creation. The Apostle adds, "He is before all
things."4 The same statement is implied in St. John's
assertion that the Word " was in the beginning," i.e., when
God "created the heavens and the earth."5 Thus we have
it clearly stated, both in the words of Christ and of His
Apostles, that Jesus Christ was "the only-begotten Son of
God, begotten of6 His Father before all the worlds."7

SECTION III.

"GOD OP GOD, LIGHT OF LIGHT, VERY GOD OF VERY GOD,
BEGOTTEN, NOT MADE, BEING OF ONE SUBSTANCE WITH
THE FATHER, BY WHOM ALL THINGS WERE MADE."

This article of the Creed is the outcome of a prolonged
controversy, the most interesting perhaps, certainly the most

1 Heb. i, 5.

2 John i. 14, 18 (where some important MSS. read "only-begotten
God" — see Dr. HORT'S Dissertation) ; iii. 16, 18. 1 John iv. 9.

3 Col. i. 15 ; Heb. i. 6. 4 Col. i. 17. 5 John i. 1, 3 ; 1 John i. 1.

6 £K ; i.e., out of, as from a source.

7 The Nicene Creed, in its original form, has yevvriO^ra £K TOU
irarpos, fj.oi>oyevr), TOVTCGTIV €K TTJS oucrias TOU irarpos, begotten from the
Father, only-begotten, that is, out of the Father's Essence. OPJGEN
(De Frincipiis I. 2) warns us not to take a carnal view of the eternal
generation of the Son.

124 THE CREED.

fundamental, of all the controversies which have sundered
those who bear the Christian name. The doctrine of the
Incarnation had always been a stumbling-block to phil
osophers, who, however much they differed on other points,
were all but unanimous on this — that matter was the source
of all evil, and that only by dissociating oneself from all
that is material could purification be attained.

The heathen philosopher, if he did not advocate self-
destruction, as in all consistency he should have done,
taught that the material part of man — the body, the source
of all the corruption of mankind — should not only be kept
under control,1 but that even its most natural appetites
should be renounced and crushed.2 Under such preconcep
tions, philosophy approached the doctrine of the Incarnation
with the strongest possible aversion. God might, it was
thought, appear to be united with a human body,3 but an
actual union was impossible, and the very idea of it
blasphemous. The Eternal Word might have come to
redeem man, but He could not possibly redeem man's whole
composite nature, consisting of body, soul, and spirit,

1 1 Cor. ix. 27.

2 So PLATO (Phacdo, c. 29). It is worth while to call the student's
attention to the fact that it is to this doctrine that what is called
asceticism is to be traced. The doctrine of the essential impurity
of matter derives no support either from the Jewish or the
Christian Scriptures. But that doctrine eventually captured the
Christian Church, and thus asceticism has come, to many persons,
actually to be made a test of saintliness. This was the case, to a
very great extent indeed, in mediaeval times. The tendency has
survived, in a modified form, even in Puritan theology, and it
continues still to colour our modern ideas. These remarks, it must
however be added, are not directed at the idea of exercise and
discipline involved in the word &a-Kr}<rts, but only to the attempt to
base it on the innate impurity of matter.

3 Hence the Docctic element in Gnosticism, which regarded the
union between the Godhead and the Manhood in Christ to be not
a real, but an apparent, union.

THE REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. 125

because the human body was incapable of redemption. He
must, therefore, have come to disengage the spiritual and
psychical portions of man's composite being from those
grosser material elements with which, by some mischance, the
higher part of man's nature had become connected.1 Thus
a whole crop of heresies arose, the main feature of which
was the denial of the fundamental doctrine of Christianity
— that which distinguishes it from almost all other religions
except Buddhism — the Incarnation of God the Word. Side
by side with these sprang up other heresies, in which the
nature of the Incarnation was misapprehended and mis
stated.2 Amid the confusions of thought thus generated,
added to the incapacity of the human intellect to grasp,
and of human language accurately to express, all that is
contained in the idea of God, it was impossible that serious
misconceptions should not arise. Accordingly, Arms, a
presbyter of Alexandria, at the beginning of the fourth
century, invented a theory of the Incarnation which,
although ingenious and plausible, evacuated the fact of
all its significance, by making the difference between the
Father and the Son practically infinite. According to
Arius, the Being which took our human nature existed
before all time,3 was far superior to all created beings,
and might properly be called God.4 But, nevertheless,

1 The various Gnostic heresies all agreed on this point.

2 Such, for instance, as the Patripassian heresy, which taught that
the Father became incarnate ; and the Sabellian, which also destroyed
the distinction between the various Persons in the Godhead. See
p. 88.

3 fy 6rt OVK ^v, there was when He was not. Arius refused to use
any word expressive of time, because he held that the Logos, or Word,
was anterior to all time.

4 Although the name of God might, in a sense, be given to Him,
He was, in truth, created and made by His Father. So ARIUS
says in his Thalia, as quoted by ATHANASIUS in his Oration against

the Arians, ii. 9, where he calls the Son a /crt'<r/*a and a

126 THE CREED.

if He were to be so called, it was to be understood that
it was in an altogether different sense to that in which
we call the Father God.

This doctrine attracted considerable attention, and ob
tained many adherents. The bishop, or, as he was after
wards called, the patriarchy of Alexandria was somewhat
disposed to treat the whole matter as a question of the
schools. But a young presbyter named Athanasius, who
had barely attained his twenty-fifth year, clearly saw that
the doctrine taught by Arius must, if adopted, prove fatal
to the whole Christian scheme.1 Athanasius converted the
patriarch to his opinion, and Arius was excommunicated.2

(a thing created and made) of God. God, he adds, was not always
a Father, but became so after He had begotten His Son. That the
Arians, if not Arms himself, called the Logos God, seems implied in
the First Oration of Athanasius against the Arians, sec. 6, where he
says that even if the Logos be called God by the Arians, yet, accord
ing to the Arian theory, He is not really so, for He is foreign (dXXorpios)
and unlike (avbjmoios) in essence to Him Who created Him. See also
LIDDON, Bampton Lectures, p. 26, where he mentions how the Arian
Dr. Clarke was asked by Dr. Hawarden whether he held that the
Father could annihilate the Son, and Dr. Clarke, after some considera
tion, confessed his inability to answer. There is another important
passage in ATHANASIUS' Second Oration against the Arians, sec. 24, in
which he shows that Arius had not quite shaken himself free of the
old Gnostic ideas of inferior beings as necessary links in the chain of
being between God and the world. Arius thought that God could not
immediately have created the world, but needed some intermediary
to undertake the work of creation. A similar passage occurs in
ATHANASIUS, De Decretis Synodi Nicaenae, sec. 8.

1 For an account of the controversy, see NEANDER, Church History,
iv. 1-81 ; GIBSELER, Church History, i. 328-353 ; DORNER, On the
Person of Christ, vol. ii. ; Prof. GWATKIN, Studies of Arianism, and
Dean STANLEY, History of the Eastern Church. The latter writer,
however, does not quite adequately appreciate the gravity of the issues
involved in the controversy.

2 We must dismiss from our minds all later ideas concerning this
word. To excommunicate, in early times, simply meant to refuse to
admit to Holy Communion.

THE REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. 127

The controversy spread throughout the whole Christian
world, and the Emperor Constantino, who had lately avowed
himself to be a Christian,1 was prevailed upon to summon a
Council of Bishops from all parts of the Christian world, to
state what had been the traditional doctrine of the Church
on this important point.2 This Council met at Nicaea, A.D.
325. It was all but unanimously resolved by those present
that the Church in every place had always been accustomed to
teach that Jesus Christ was "God of (or from, CK) God,
Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not
made," and that He was "of one Substance (i.e., Nature,
or Essence) with the Father." But this unanimity was
soon disturbed. Several of the Bishops who had Arian
leanings3 began to doubt whether the word Homoousion (of
one substance with) was not too strong, and whether it
was fair to impose as a test upon the Christian Church a
word which was not found in Holy Scripture. The objec
tion appeared to be a reasonable one, and it met with a
large amount of support throughout the Church Catholic.
But Athanasius, who, in the meantime, had succeeded
Alexander as Bishop, or Patriarch, of Alexandria, main
tained resolutely that the word Homoousion and no other,
would be found adequate to preserve the true doctrine of

1 It may be necessary to add, for the information of some readers,
that Constantino was the first Christian Emperor.

2 It is necessary to remember this, for the opponents of the Nicene
doctrine have been accustomed to represent it as having been forced
upon the Christian world by the votes of a majority, like many
mediaeval and modern doctrines taught in the Church of Rome. We
must bear in mind (1) that the Bishops were asked, not to discuss a
difficult theological question, but to state what was the tradition in
the Churches to which they belonged, and (2) that the decision was
practically unanimous. [See Preface to 2nd Ed.]

3 We ought not to forget that one of these was the learned and able
Eusebius of Caesarea, who was in high favour with Constantino, and
to whom the Church is deeply indebted for his invaluable history of
the first three centuries of the Christian Church.

128 THE CREED.

the Incarnation of the Divine Word. His view wat
espoused almost unanimously among the practical Latins.
But the Eastern Christians, possessing a language better
fitted to express the more delicate shades of thought, and
more disposed, in consequence, to make religion a question
of dialectics, disputed his conclusion with great force and
ingenuity. A number of courtiers, moreover, contrived to
excite in the mind of t the Emperor Constantine, and
afterwards in that of his son Constantius, suspicions of
the loyalty of Athanasius, as well as an unworthy jealousy
of the extraordinary influence which his character and
ability had given him throughout the Christian world.
Council was therefore held after Council, and Creed
compiled after Creed,1 with the view of defining the
traditional doctrine of the Christian Church without the
use of the obnoxious and non-scriptural word Homobusion.
The result was to establish, in the most conclusive manner,
the foresight and sagacity of Athanasius. It was found that
if the admission were made that the essence of the Son was
unlike that of the Father, the natural result was to strengthen
the hands of those who taught that Jesus Christ was a
mere man. The advocates of compromise then shifted
their ground. The Arians had taught that the Son was
unlike the Father in Essence. A Semi-Arian party was
formed, which asserted that He was like the Father in
Essence (Homoiousion) ; and this doctrine was triumphantly
affirmed at a Council held at Sirmium in A.D. 359.2 But

1 The number of creeds actually drawn up amounted to eight,
according to Socrates, a Catholic writer of the fifth century (Hist.
Eccl. II. 41). But he actually gives eleven, including that submitted
by Eusebius of Caesarea to the Nicene Council.

3 The Creed is known as the Fourth, or Dated Creed, of Sirmium.
It was much ridiculed by Athanasius (De Synodis, sec. 3) for the
pompous language adopted in its opening words. "The Catholic
faith was published at Sirmium, in presence of our Lord Constantius,

THE REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHPIST. 129

it was found, as before, that the only result was to
encourage the humanitarian party to raise its head again.
And as men did not fail to observe at the time, the
Sirmian formula was no more couched in the actual
language of Scripture than that of Nicaea. Thus the
advocates of compromise found the ground cut from
under their feet. They were, most of them, either too
dull of comprehension, or too obstinate, as men almost
invariably are under similar circumstances, to confess their
defeat at once ; but it was clear to every thoughtful man
that, after the failure at Sirmium, the victory of the
Homoousion was only a question of time. With his
usual statesmanlike grasp of the situation, Athanasius
forbore to press matters. He confined himself to re
moving hindrances in the way of a mutual understanding.
He unfortunately died before that understanding was
arrived at. But the leaders of the Semi-Arian party,
Basil of Cappadocia, and the two Gregories, of Nazianzus
and of Nyssa, recognized the inevitable;1 and at the
Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381, after fifty-six years
of conflict and confusion, it was acknowledged that the
word Homoousion, which affirmed the unity of Essence

on the 23rd May." Athanasius asks, satirically, whether the Catholic
faith had not, by any chance, been heard of before. Against the
Sirmian conclusions he argues that brass is like gold, and pigeons
like doves, yet that nevertheless they were of different natures. If
this were the case with the Son, he proceeds, He would really be a
creature like ourselves. " But if He be the Word, Wisdom, Image of
God, then in all reason He must be Consubstantial with Him." But
this doctrine, he continues, excludes carnal conceptions. Passing
outside the region of sense, by pure mental processes we discern the
relation of the Son to the Father, of the Word to God as He is in
Himself, of the Effulgence to the Light from which it beams. De
Deer. Syn. Nic. chaps, xxiii. xxiv.

i "Time had not verified the fears of 325 concerning doctrinal
dangers inherent in the term o^oo&rtos." HOET, Dissertation on the
Creed of Constantinople, p. 109.

130 THE CREED.

of the Son with the Father, was the only effectual
safeguard of the Primitive and Catholic Faith. From
that date to our own it has been practically accepted by
Christendom as an accurate definition, on this point, of
"the faith which was once for all delivered to the
saints."1

Our next step, after giving the history of this portion of
the Creed, so that we may understand the kind of authority
on which it rests, will be to explain what is involved in it.
"We shall not go over the ground again which we have gone
over in chapter iii., and demonstrate the Divinity of Christ.
Our business here will be with the doctrine of the derivation
of that Divinity from Its Source, namely, the Being of the
Father. That the Son is represented in the Scriptures to
be God, we have already seen. We have now to show
that He is God the Son; that He derives His Being
from the Father by a process which is called generation,
but which must carefully be dissociated from any carnal
or corporeal ideas, or any ideas of time, which our
experience of visible nature may have led us to attach
to it.2 "Generation" is, in fact, only a phrase to denote
communication or derivation of being.5 Another phrase,
procession,* is used to denote the derivation of being
in the case of the Holy Spirit. We do not pretend that
the human mind is able to comprehend the distinctions

1 We ought not to pass over the fact that Jesus Christ allowed the
Jews to remain under the impression that when He Himself called
God His Father, He did so in a special and peculiar sense. They
complained (John v. 18) that irarepa KSiov Ae-ye rbv 6e6v} He called
God His own Father.

2 Compare the passage on Christ's conception, p. 149.

3 " Pater est vita in Semetipso, non a Filio : Filius vita in
Semetipso, sed a Patre." AUGUSTINE in Joan. Tract xix. 13,
Ed. Migne.

4 In Greek ticirdpcvffit, the literal translation of which is "going
forth," as from a source.

THE REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. 131

involved in these words.1 All we know is, that the one,
generation, or, to use its English equivalent, begetting, is
used by Jesus Christ to describe the mode of His derivation
from the Father, while the other, procession, is used by
Him to describe the mode of derivation of the Spirit from
the Father. What is meant by them precisely, we shall
probably never know. All that we can learn from them is
that the mode of derivation of the Being of the Son from
that of the Father, the sole ultimate source of all life,
created or uncreated, differs in some unknown way from
the mode of derivation of the Spirit's Being from the same
source. Beyond this it were useless to inquire, and unwise
to speculate; not, however, because the propositions in
question are contrary to reason, but because they are
beyond it. The practical value to us of the distinctions
of which we have been speaking may, or may not, be
great. But they place us, in regard to the Being of God,
in a fitting attitude of humility and teachableness. And,
at least, they serve to emphasize, and to enable us to bear in
mind, the eternal distinctions which, as we have seen,2 exist
in the very bosom of the Sacred Trinity itself.

The derivation of the Son from the Father is implied in
the very word "Son" itself. Consequently, wherever we
find the term "Son" in a connection in which it clearly
does not refer to the Manhood of Christ, we find a justifi
cation for applying the words " God of (i.e. from) God " to
Jesus Christ.3 Such a passage, for instance, as that in

1 See what has been said in pp. 53, 54 about language being at best
but an approximation, in the case of facts too vast to admit of com
plete measurement by the human intellect. 2 See p. 89.

3 debv IK deov, the preposition signifying the springing out of, as
from a source. Thus it is the characteristic of the Son that His
Godhead is derived from the source of Godhead, after a manner which
is denoted by the word generation. And we should further remark
that the word "generation," when applied to a Person in the
Trinity, does not imply a past act, but an eternally present relation.

132 THE CREED.

Hebrews i. 2, in which the Son is described as the
4 'effulgence," or, more literally still, the " beaming forth"
of the Father's glory, and the "very image," or better as
in the margin, the " impress " of His Substance or Essence,
is decisive upon such a point. Such, again, is the statement
of St. John (i. 18), that "no man hath seen God at any
time," but that "the only-begotten Son, He Who existeth
into the bosom of the Father, He hath imparted the know
ledge of Him."1 All those passages, again, in which we
have referred to the Son as "sent" by the Father, declare
the same truth.2 For we have before shown that Jesus
Christ is declared in Scripture to be God. If, therefore,
He is spoken of as sent by God from heaven (and, as we
have just seen, He repeatedly states that He has come down
from heaven), He must be, in some sense, distinct from the
Father. We are taught the same truth when we read
that it is "given" to Him to "have life in Himself";3
that "all judgment is given to Him";4 that God gave
His only-begotten Son, that "whosoever believeth in Him
might have eternal life";5 that we are "in Him that is
true, in His Son Jesus Christ."6 The term Word, again,
teaches us the same truth in different language. It does so
even in English. For a word implies the expression and
communication of a thought. If no thought be expressed,
there can be no word, but only a sound. Thus if Jesus
Christ be the Word of God, He must be the expression of
the Mind of God ; in other words, " God from God." The

1 The rendering here is my own, and, as far as possible, a literal
one. The word ^yijcaro is difficult to express in English. It literally
means to lead forth. But it here seems to point to the Son as God
in the act of communicating Himself.

2 As for instance, John iv. 34 ; v. 23, 24, 30, &c., &c., and especially
xvi. 28, and 1 John iv. 9. Also Rom. viii. 3, Gal. iv. 4.

3 John v. 26. 4 John v. 22 ; Matt. xxiv. 31-46 ; Acts xvii. 31.
6 John iii. 16. 6 1 John v. 20.

THE REVELATION OP GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. 133

Greek word Logos, which signifies Thought or Reason, as
well as the expression of it, expresses the same truth yet
more distinctly. For (1) the thought, or reason, has an
objective existence before its expression ; and (2) the word is
the expression, or communication, of that which previously
existed. Thus the word Logos involves (1) the pre-existence
of Him to "Whom it was applied; and (2) that He announced,
or communicated, His existence in creation, revelation, self-
impartation through His Spirit. Once more, He was "in
the beginning." He was "with God"; He "was God."
And He "became flesh, and dwelt among us," so that we
"beheld His glory, the glory of the Only-begotten of the
Father, full of grace and truth."1 The same truth finds
expression once again when we are told that Christ is the
Image of Him Who is invisible,2 and that "God was in
Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself."3 Nor can
we fail to recognize yet another expression of it in the
innumerable passages in which we find God's life, His
purpose, His salvation, His righteousness, His grace or
favour, His loving-kindness spoken of as manifested, or
imparted, to man "in Jesus Christ our Lord."4

The Eternal Word, moreover, is "Light from Light." We
need not elaborate this point. That from God all light
proceeds is a truth repeatedly asserted in Scripture; e.g.,
Ezra ix. 8 ; Psalm iv. 6, xxvii. 1, xxxvi. 9, xliii. 3, cxviii. 27 ;
Isaiah Ix. 19, 20 ; John i. 4 ; 1 Timothy vi, 16 ; 1 John i. 5, 7.
That Jesus Christ came to cause this Light5 to shine among

1 John i. 1, 14. 2 Col. i. 15. Cf. 2 Cor. iv. 4. 3 2 Cor. v. 19.

4 The student must remember that in the Authorised Version this
truth is frequently obscured by the rendering "through" or "by"
for the Greek tv.

5 Light may be described as the power which enables us to see
all things, whatever they may be, as they are. It therefore signifies
the power which diffuses moral as well as intellectual truth. See
Rom. xiii. 12 ; Ephesians v. 8, 13 ; 1 Thess. v. 5 ; 1 John ii. 9-11,

134 THE CREED.

men we learn from Luke ii. 32 ; John i. 4, 9, viii. 12, ix. 5,
xii. 35, 36, 46; Actsxiii. 47; Ephesians v. 14; 2 Timothy
i. 10; 1 John ii. 8; as well as from many other passages
too numerous to quote. That this Light is from the source
of Light we are further taught in John iii. 17-21, and
in 2 Cor. iv. 4, 6. That Christ gives it, is clear from
Ephesians v. 14 ; that He Himself is Light we learn from
John i. 4, 9, viii. 12, ix. 5, xii. 46. But we need not
insist further on this point, as it is virtually involved in
the last. Nor need we spend any pains in proving that
Christ is "Very (or True) God from Very (or True) God."
In fact, this phrase was only added in order to protest
against the doctrine that the Son, if called God, was called
so only in an inferior or unreal sense. It proved, however,
insufficient to guard the doctrine of Christ's Divinity until
the words " of one Substance with the Father " were added,
in order to make it clear that the Godhead of the Son was
not of a different, but of the same nature as the Godhead
of the Father — that one and the same Essence was derived
by the Son from the origin and source of all Being.1

1 The words "Begotten, not made" (yevv^Olvra ou Tron/fleVra), have
already been partially discussed. It is unfortunate that the minds of
the Fathers of the fourth century were fixed on the intellectual, to the
almost entire exclusion of the moral or practical side of God's Essence.
"Light of (or from) Light" might very well have been balanced
by " Love of (or from) Love " in the Nicene Creed ; and it would
have materially aided man's comprehension of the mystery of the
Divine Being. But it has been said, albeit not quite accurately, that
the theology of early days was Petrine, and consisted in the acceptance
of a creed (though why St. Peter should be more responsible for
dogma than any other member of the Apostolic College does not
seem very clear) ; that of the Reformation, Pauline, and resting on
faith, or trust in God ; while we are at present entering upon a period
when the theology of St. John will be in the ascendant, the leading
principle of which is love. The idea, however, that St. Paul is the
apostle of faith, St. John of love, as we have already seen (p. 16), is
not borne out by a study of their works. St. John insists on faith as

THE REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. 135

The next statement in the Creed is that the Lord Jesus
Christ, being thus essentially Divine, is He " by Whom all
things were made." The source from which every kind of
life is ultimately drawn is, of course, the Father. Hence
He is spoken of as the "Maker of heaven and earth, and
of all things visible and invisible." But as it is the special
attribute of the Son to be the revelation or manifestation
of the Father, He must necessarily be the Agent by Whom
the creation is effected.1 Accordingly, we are told by
St. John and St. Paul, and the writer of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, that this was the case. "Without Him,"2 says
the former, " was not anything made that hath been made."3
St. Paul tells us that by the Son " were all things created in
the heavens and upon the earth, visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers;
all things have been created through Him and unto Him."4

much as St. Paul, while St. Paul makes love the end to which the
redeeming work of Christ tends. But though it is doubtless a
mistake to identify a particular apostle with a particular one-sided
view of the Christian scheme, the above historical summary of the
general tendencies of Christian thought, from the beginning until
now, is doubtless correct. St. Augustin, De Catechizandis Rudibus,
chap, vi., refers all God's dealings with us to love as their final
cause.

1 " Seeing, therefore, that the Father alone is originally that Deity
which Christ originally is not (for Christ is God, by being of God ;
Light, by issuing out of Light), it followeth hereupon that whatsoever
Christ hath in common with His heavenly Father, the same must
of necessity be given Him, but naturally and eternally given, not
bestowed by way of benevolence and favour." HOOKER, Eccl. Pol.
V., liv. 2. But here we must remember that Hooker does not mean
by "originally" what we mean in modern English, i.e., "from the
beginning," but simply that the Son is not, and cannot be, the origin
of all being.

2 Literally, apart from Him. John i. 4.

3 Many commentators connect "that hath been made" with what
follows.

4 Col. i. 16. Of. 1 Cor. viii. 6 ; Eph. iii. 9.

136 THE CREED.

And the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of the
Son as He " through Whom God made the worlds."1

We must not pass from this subject without a reference
to certain statements industriously propagated in England,
and still more industriously in Germany, to the effect that
the views of Christ's Nature above expressed are later
developments of Christian theology, and formed no part
of the original teaching of the founders of Christianity.
Professor Harnack's recent work on the Creed is the most
modern instance of this tendency in modern thought, and
it demands at least a passing notice in these pages. His
method is remarkable for its ingenuity. It represents the
Canon of the New Testament as having been formed very
gradually, and the Creed as of still later date. His facts
are unquestionable, but his inferences from them are the
precise opposite of the truth. Doubtless there was no such
thing in the earliest days as a Canon of the New Testament,
in the sense of a body of writings, the supreme authority of
which had been officially recognized ; nor was there, as yet,
any special document formally imposed as a Creed through
out the Christian world. But we must not allow ourselves
to lose sight of the fact that the writings, which were after
wards embodied into a Canon, were in existence in Apostolic
times. Nor is this all. They were all the work of Apostles,
or companions of the Apostles,2 and, therefore, of men

1 Heb. i. 3. There is a remarkable passage in the Exposition of
Faith of ATHANASITJS, chap. i. (if it be really his), which summarises
the Catholic Faith on this point. He says that we are to believe
on one Only - begotten Word, Wisdom, Son, begotten without
beginning and everlastingly from the Father — a Word neither
emitted (TrpofiopiKbv), nor indwelling (frdidOerov), nor an emanation
from the Perfect One, nor cut off nor cast forth from the impassible
Nature ; but a Son, IV .''ect of Himself, living and energizing, the
True Image of the Father, of equal honour and glory with Him. "

2 See for the proof of this, WESTCOTT, On the Canon, and
SALMON'S Introduction to the Study of the N. T. I may be permitted

THE REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. 137

who knew perfectly well what the doctrine was which
Christ commissioned His disciples to preach. In regard to
the Lordship and Divinity of Christ, we have already shown
that the doctrine contained in the Apostles' Creed is not
first to be found in the writers of the latter end of the
second century after Christ, but that it is contained in
the most explicit form in the Scriptures themselves. The
student may also be asked to note the fact that, in our
demonstration, these doctrines have not been based on the
Johannine writings alone. They are to be found either
explicitly, or by the clearest possible inference, in all the
writings of the New Testament, and were, therefore,
unquestionably taught from the very first.1 The same
will hereafter be proved as we deal with the remaining
articles of the Christian Faith.2 And in what has been
already said concerning the early history of the Christian
Creed, we have pointed out the fallacy which underlies
Professor Harnack's reasoning. The early Church was
not so anxious for the letter as for the spirit of the
Catholic Faith. Therefore, until the Council of Nicaea
found it necessary to put forth an authoritative form of

also to refer to my own Principles of Biblical Criticism. Some among
ourselves have been inclined to surrender 2 Peter ; but those who
have done so do not seem to have attached sufficient weight to the
following two considerations : (1) That if not genuine, it is not merely
spurious, but a deliberate forgery ; and (2) that between it and the
best of the sub-Apostolic writings there is a "great gulf fixed," both
in style and matter. [Zahn, in his recent work on the N.T., uses
the first argument.]

1 Thus even St. James, though he does not explicitly assert the
Divinity or Pre-existence, most distinctly asserts the Lordship of
Christ (i. 1, ii. 1, v. 1, 8, 11, 14, 15). And, as we shall see hereafter, the
doctrine of the Incarnation is also received by him.

2 Professor SWETE, in his work on The Apostles' Creed, has proved
beyond a doubt that Clement and Ignatius, in the first and early part
of the second century, held precisely the same doctrine as the Apostles'
Creed now contains.

138 THE CREED.

creed, there were a variety of creeds in use, in various
parts of the world. But these creeds, however much (or,
rather, little) they differed in form, were identical in
substance; and, as our Church observes in her Articles,1
and as has been abundantly shown in these pages, that
substance may be proved by most certain warranty of
Holy Scripture to be a correct statement of the "faith
which was once for all delivered to the saints." 2

The truth is, that the whole system of Christianity, as
represented in the various books of the New Testament,
is essentially supernatural. Even the synoptic narratives do
not confine themselves to the humanitarian view of Christ's
Person ; they postulate the assumption of our human flesh
by a Being essentially Divine.8 That Being, according to
the teaching of the whole New Testament, offered to God,
as Man, a full and perfect obedience, such as man had
hitherto found it impossible to render. As we shall see
hereafter, the New Testament scriptures regard that
"obedience unto death," involving, as it did, the full
and adequate recognition and confession of man's sin-
fulness, as a "full, perfect, and sufficient Sacrifice, Obla
tion, and Propitiation for the sins of the whole world."
They teach that this regenerated, purified, Deified Humanity

1 Art. VIII.

2 The writer of these pages may be permitted to express his regret
that so much respect is at present paid in this country to German
criticism and its methods. It is doubtless learned and ingenious, and
it has not unfrequently made valuable discoveries ; but it is essentially
arbitrary. It is accustomed to build vast structures of theory upon
a very minute basis of fact. It frequently ignores such facts as are
irreconcilable with the theory it desires to establish ; and it is some
times inclined to represent a conclusion as proved, on evidence which,
to more well-balanced minds, simply makes the conclusion a bare
possibility. As a valued friend says, speaking of the researches of
German inquirers in regions outside theology, "they have infinite
patience, but no perspective" 3 See p. 97.

THE REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. 139

is imparted to each man according to the measure of his
faith j that man is thus looked upon as provisionally
righteous by virtue of his union with the Righteous One,
effected by that faith; that under the influence of that
faith he continually progresses toward a real righteous
ness, not his own, but that of Jesus Christ; and that
he eventually attains that righteousness when all sinful
propensities are subdued, and the human will is finally
and irrevocably conformed to the Divine. This doctrine,
as we shall find, was taught from the beginning; it will
survive unto the end. And whether theological science
will finally contrive to satisfy the human mind in regard
to certain intellectual questions arising out of these first
principles of Christian theology, or whether it will not,
the principles themselves admit neither of development nor
change. They are at the root of " the Catholic faith, which,
except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved."1 Like
Him to Whom it points, that faith is "the same yesterday,
to-day, and for ever."2

1 See p. 11 for the interpretation to be placed on these words.

2 A few words may be necessary on that caricature, or rather evis
ceration, of the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation involved in the
Roman doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the B. V. M. This
doctrine simply follows, by a logical necessity, from the virtual
apotheosis of Mary in the Roman Communion. But one essential
feature of the true Catholic faith is the uniqueness of the miraculous
conception of Christ. He alone was conceived without sin, because to
Him alone was committed the task of redeeming mankind. But if,
in order that He should be thus conceived, it was necessary also that
His Mother should be conceived free from sin, then, as Professor
Blunt showed when the dogma was promulgated in 1854, it was
equally necessary that her mother should have been so conceived, and
so on back to the creation of mankind. And thus the doctrine of
the Fall of man is virtually abandoned.

CHAPTER V.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST
SECTION I.

"WHO FOR US MEN AND FOR OUR SALVATION CAME DOWN
FROM HEAVEN, AND WAS INCARNATE BY THE HOLY
GHOST OF THE VIRGIN MARY, AND WAS MADE MAN"

IT is necessary, in dealing with the redemptive work of
Christ, to offer a few preliminary observations on certain
misconceptions of its actual character which, in the course
of ages, have obscured the earlier and more accurate view of
it. The starting point of early theology was unquestionably
the Incarnation. The New Testament, as it stands, does
not, it is true, furnish us with a body of systematic theology.
But it is not difficult, with proper care, to ascertain from it
what were the main features of the Christian system, as
taught by Christ and His Apostles. There can be no doubt
that, as described in Holy Scripture, Christ's redemptive
work may be summed up in this, that Christ became Man,
that man might be brought into union wiih God. We read
of the new birth, or begetting, of those who belong to Christ;
of Christ as the Second Adam,1 i.e., a new source from which

i John i. 12, 13 ; iii. 3, 5. 1 Cor. xv. 45. 2 Cor. v. 17. Gal. vi.
15. Eph. iv. 24. 1 John v. 1. It should be borne in mind that St.
John speaks rather of the implanting of the first germ of life than, as
is suggested by the word birth, of the ushering of a fully organized
being into new conditions and a new environment. This consideration
will remove many difficulties, e.g., objections to the instantaneous
character of the change, as implied in our Baptismal Office.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OP JESUS CHRIST. 141

human life was, after His coming, to be derived ; of His Flesh
and Blood as the nutriment of that New and Divine Life ; l
of our being made " partakers of the Divine Nature," and
thus of our " escaping the corruption that was in the world
through ill-regulated desire (tiriOvpia)"2 In short, it was a
gospel of restoration and development, and not a mere gospel
of forgiveness that was preached. And thus the early Fathers
were wont to teach.3 But this fundamental doctrine was

1 John vi. 53-57. 2 2 Pet. i. 4.

8 Such passages abound in all the early Fathers, especially the Greek
Fathers, e.g., Irenaeus: "In the end of the world the Word of the
Father and the Spirit of God united to the ancient substance of which
Adam was formed, made man living and perfect [as] receiving the
Perfect Father : that as in the psychic (animali) man we had all died,
so in the spiritual man we might all be made alive." Against
Heresies, V. i. 3. (This passage is not extant in the Greek.) Clement
jof Alexandria : " I (i.e., Jesus Christ) desire to restore you to the
original model, that ye may become like Me. I anoint you with the
ointment of faith, whereby you cast off all corruption. I show you,
in its unadorned simplicity, the form of righteousness by which ye
ascend to God." Exhortation to the Greeks, chap. 12. Origen : "If
man, made in the Image of God, is made like to the devil through
looking on his image by means of sin, much more by looking on the
Image of God, after the similitude of which God made him, shall he,
by the Word and Virtue of God, receive that form which was given
him by Nature. But let no man despair when he sees himself to be
more like the devil than God, for the Saviour came, not to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance. Matthew was a publican, and
thus his image was like the devil ; but when he came to the Image of
God — that is, our Lord and Saviour — and followed it, he was trans
formed into the Image of God." Homilies on Genesis, ii. 13.
Athanasius places the idea of restoration, or rather of exaltation,
at the root of his whole theological system. The Word took on
Him Humanity, that we might become Divine (avrbs yap evyv-
Bp&tniffev, tva ype'is QeoiroirjO&nev}. On the Incarnation of the Word
of God, chap. liv. So Basil, writing to the Church in Sozopolis,
says that if Christ had not come in the flesh, not only could He not
have paid our debt to death, but also "that which had fallen down
could not have been formed anew ; that which was broken in pieces
could not have been set up again ; that could not have been intimately

142 THE CREED.

soon obscured. In the East speculation usurped the place
of practical religion, while, even from Tertullian's time, we
find, in the "West, a tendency to substitute a conception of
an occasional Divine assistance called " grace," for the more
scriptural one of the perpetual indwelling of Christ in the
human heart through His Spirit.1 Slowly this conception
made its way, assisted by inaccurate renderings in the
Vulgate,2 until at last the true doctrine was almost lost
sight of amid the accretions which had gathered around it.
The chief of all these was the doctrine of the sufficiency,

united to God which had been alienated by the serpent's deceit."
(chap. 2.) Theodoret, in his Questions on II. Kings, has an interesting
remark on the miracle worked by Elisha of making the iron swim by
means of wood. "So," he says, "did the descent of the Divine
Nature effect the raising of the human nature."

1 The first signs of this tendency are to be found in Tertullian.
But it had not assumed the proportions which it has assumed in later
days. " Grace," in the New Testament, uniformly means favour,
including, no doubt, the effects of that favour, but never altogether
losing sight of the original idea. Tertullian speaks of the "grace of
water" in Baptism. He opposes grace to nature (On the Soul,
chap, xxi.), whereas St. Paul opposes grace to law. He does,
however, contrast our condition by nature with our condition by
Divine favour. But Tertullian never recommends his readers to pray
for the grace of Gx>d to keep them from sin, as mediaeval and modern
writers continually do. Augustine was the first to do this (Concerning
Corruption and Grace, chap. ii. Against Julianus, Book IV. iii. 15).
He does, however, speak of " the grace of the Spirit " as the means
whereby we are enabled to shun evil and to do good. But he is
not always quite consistent in his language. When he opposes grace
to free will, he is on Scriptural lines. In ascribing our Justification
to grace (Enchirid., p. 36) his language, though often misunderstood
in consequence of the idea of grace later ages have imbibed, is once
more on ground quite unassailable. Here as elsewhere the want
of clear definitions, and the use of words in various senses without
careful explanation of the sense in which they are used, has been a
fruitful source of controversy. It is worth noting, however, that in
Art. x., "on Grace," in the Articles of 1552, we have the words "the
grace of God, or the Holy Ghost by Him given."

2 Especially that of iv by per.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 143

under certain conditions, of human merit, which was
supposed to be able not only to make atonement for sin,
and to ensure the salvation of him who had amassed a suffi
cient stock of it, but, in the case of persons of very exalted
piety, to accumulate a store of good works, which, under
the title of works of supererogation, could be applied by the
authorities of the Church toward the satisfying the liabilities
of those who had come short of the requirements of God's
Law.1 At the Reformation the intolerable burden of such
a system was keenly felt, as well as the utter impossibility
of satisfying the requirements of God's Law, or of making
a sufficient reparation, even for one single sin, by any
number of good works whatsoever. The prevailing
tendency in that age of reaction from mediaeval theology
was, therefore, to insist very strongly on the " full, perfect,
and sufficient Oblation, Sacrifice, and Satisfaction " made
by Jesus Christ for sin, and on the reciprocal transfer of
merits and demerits which took place in the case of those
who appropriated the virtue of that Sacrifice by faith.
Thus the centre of gravity of the Christian system was
insensibly shifted. Instead of representing its ultimate
aim as the restoration and development of humanity,
its leading idea was 'supposed to be propitiation for sin,
and it was held that a belief in the merits of the Atoning
Sacrifice, coupled with a firm persuasion that the believer
had come within its terms, would of itself produce that
inward sanctification, that progress in holiness, which the
Scriptures everywhere teach to be a necessary conse
quence of redemption in Christ Jesus. It is not denied
that the doctrine of our reception of life from Christ was
taught by the school to which we have referred. But
from the primary doctrine of the Gospel it came to hold
a secondary place. It became the result of the conscious
1 See Article XIV., on Worlks of Supererogation.

144 THE CREED.

acceptance of pardon through faith in the efficacy of
Christ's Death, instead of flowing from faith in a Living
Saviour — a faith which unites us to Him, and by virtue of
that union imparts to us not only pardon and the sense
of sonship, but also the sanctification which such union of
necessity involves. The view above described was also often
accompanied by an exaggerated depreciation of the value of
good works, which have even been described by some writers
as rather a hindrance than a help in the way of our salva
tion. And thus by degrees the whole scheme of salvation
came popularly to be narrowed to a mere acceptance of
pardon, apart from genuine repentance and from the process
of inward sanctification by the Spirit of God.

We shall hereafter endeavour to show that the Scriptures
do not confine the sphere of faith to the Atoning Sacrifice
of our Lord, but that they attribute it equally to all parts
of His Redeeming Work.1 It may be sufficient to remark
here that this change in fundamental conceptions in regard
to that work produced very serious results in Christian
practice. Christians began to substitute their own sub
jective conceptions, in the shape of an inward assurance of
salvation, for the progressive work of the Spirit in their

* One result of the tendency to which reference has been made was
insensibly to limit man's conceptions of the operation of Christ's
Mediation to His Sacrifice on the Cross, and His having thereby
undergone the punishment due to our sins. A singular consequence
of this has been that many persons have been altogether unable to
follow Bishop Butler's reasoning in his Analogy, in the chapter on the
Mediation of Christ, simply because he uses the term Mediation in its
ordinary sense of an intervention between two parties. It is obvious
that all Christ's dealings with us, His Assumption of our nature, His
Example, His Teaching, His Resurrection, His perpetual Intercession
for us, and His gift to us of His Spirit, are included in the term
Mediation. It is not confined to His offer of Himself for us to God
by His Death. It embraces every possible means through which He
zould act on God's behalf towards us, or in our behalf towards God.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 145

hearts — the only true evidence of a living faith — and,
in a great many cases, to look rather for forgiveness of
sins than for conquest over them.1 The Tractarian move
ment was a reaction in favour of the duties of practical
religion, and a great deal of its success was owing to that
fact. But, inasmuch as at first many of its adherents
recurred rather to Latin than to early Greek theology, its
earlier teaching on this point was less satisfactory than
that of a later period. That is to say, it did not
always steer clear of the idea of merit as attached to good
works. It did not always regard them as organic, the
natural result of the Presence of the "implanted Word"2
in the heart of the believer. There was therefore room
for the school of thought identified with the name of the
late Professor F. D. Maurice, who insisted most strongly
that there could be no deliverance from the effects of sin
except through a deliverance from sin itself, and that our
Lord was called "Jesus," not because He came "to save
His people " from the consequences of their sins, but
" from the sins " which tended to bring about those
consequences. Thus we are now taught to repose our
confidence in a Saviour Who not only " died for our sins,"
but " rose again for our justification " ; Who not only
imputes, but imparts, righteousness; in a Father Who,
though we have not as yet actually become righteous,
starts by regarding us as such, in consequence of the

1 "Whatsoever is begotten of God overcometh the world." (1 John
v. 4.) "Pardon of sin was not the chief aim of sacrifice. The
undue prominence given in the Theology of the Reformation to this
aspect of the truth, though easily accounted for, and perhaps
unavoidable in the earlier history of the Churches of that era, has
been attended with no small injury to the very truths which those
Churches were most anxious to conserve." MILLIGAN, On the
Resurrection, p. 276.

2 James i. 21.

146 THE CREED.

Presence in our hearts 'of His Son, by His Spirit. Such a
Presence tends ever more and more to bring about in us a
perfect union with the Mind and Will of God, and thus to
complete that reconciliation which, so far as our part in it
is concerned, begins with a willing acceptance of the con
ditions under which Divine forgiveness is granted, and the
offer of our hearts to the sanctifying influences of the Spirit
of Christ.1 To the elucidation of this principle we shall
now proceed.

I. And first, as to the foundation on which all the
redemptive work of Christ is built: the assumption
of our human nature by the Eternal Son "for us men
and for our salvation." The Creed tells us that the Son
of God, regarding Whose Divine Nature we have already
been duly informed, " was Incarnate" — that is, took
upon Himself our human nature — "by the Holy Ghost of
the Virgin Mary, and was made man," or, as the same
truth is expressed in the Apostles' Creed, He was

1 It is at once interesting and singular to observe how gradually the
doctrine of the Divine immanence in us through the Divine and
human life of our Lord Jesus Christ fell into the background after
the Reformation, and how gradually it was restored. Hooker clearly
regards the saving work of Christ to consist in the gift of His Life.
Pearson has come to look upon that work as nothing more than the
making propitiation for sin. So the theologians of the "Catholic
revival," though they revived the true doctrine of the Incarnation,
took some time to rid themselves of the conception that propitiation,
and not restoration, was the main feature of the Christian scheme.
" In proportion as men come to see that the august phenomenon of
Christian goodness is best accounted for by the presence of a re
creating energy, by the infusion of what Scripture describes as a
Divine 'life,' they will acknowledge a raison-d'ftre for the affirmations
of Catholic Christianity, and a real appropriateness in the prayer of
the Mediator that believers might be 'sanctified in the truth.'"
Canon BRIGHT, On the Incarnation, Preface, pp. xiv. xv. We
cannot discern too clearly that it is in this great fact that the
whole comprehensive scheme of Christian theology takes its rise.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 147

conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary."1
This truth is declared by the Apostle St. John, when he
says that "the Word became Flesh, and dwelt among us."2
A similar expression is given to it by St. Paul, when he
says that "when the fulness of the time came, God sent
forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law."8
Of the manner in which this was done we learn in Matthew
i. 18-25, and Luke i. That is to say, the birth of Christ
was a miraculous birth.4 He was not born after the ordinary
manner of mankind. In that miraculous birth there was,
to use the language of St. Paul in regard to the imparting
of Christ's Nature to ourselves, a "new creation."5 Christ,
as St. Paul elsewhere puts it, was the Second Adam, that is
to say, a new first parent whence the human race could
henceforth derive a higher and holier life. But the life
derived from Him was not a natural — or, rather, psychical6
— but a supernatural or spiritual life.7 In accordance with

1 The accurate translation of the words in the Nicene Creed is
"and was made flesh from the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin, and
was made (or became) man." In the original form of the Creed given
us by the historian Socrates, the words are simply "and was made
flesh, and was made man," with no mention by what means He
became such. See SOCRATES, Ecd. Hist.) i. 8. Also p. 5.

2 John i. 14.

3 Gal. iv. 5. Cf. Rom. i. 3, 4 ; 1 Cor. xv. 47 ; Phil. ii. 7, 8 ; 1 Tim.
iii. 16 ; Heb. ii. 14, 16.

4 As much as this is clearly implied in Gal. iv. 5.
6 KaivT) KTio-is, 2 Cor. v. 17.

6 I/^XIKOS, a word difficult to translate, but meaning belonging to
the i/'i'X1?, or soul. See below, pp. 160, 228.

7 See 1 Cor. ii. 14-16 ; xv. 44-18. Also, compare John vi. 50-58
with 62, 63. For the evidence on behalf of the Incarnation, see
Bishop HARVEY GOODWIN on the Foundations of the Creed, pp.
98-127. He enlarges, among other things, on the accuracy of St.
Luke, as shown by his narrative of the shipwreck in Acts xxvii.,
which has been carefully tested by Mr. Smith, of Jordanhill, in his
monograph on the subject. He shows that the Gospels of St. Mark
and St. John, though not directly asserting the miraculous birth of

148 THE CREED.

the scientific principle, call it development, or evolution,
or what you will, by which each new advance of living
beings in the scale of creation seems rather to have been
grafted on some preceding one, than simply to have arisen
out of it, Christ grafts a higher and spiritual humanity on
the lower or psychic humanity, and has thus taken the
crowning step in the history of created beings, by placing
a Divine ideal of perfection within the reach of the human
race. Hence, we may remark in passing, the amazing
advance in the whole character of human life since the
angels proclaimed the good tidings of "peace on earth,
goodwill towards men."1

We must further explain the need for a birth "of
the Virgin Mary." The "new creation" was not to
be altogether independent of the old. There was a link
between them. The redemption which Christ came to
achieve for us would not have been complete had He not
come in the "likeness of sinful flesh,"2 though "without
sin."3 If the conception of Christ was a new departure
for humanity, it was one which commenced from the
starting point of human nature as it was. By assuming
our flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, herself a
daughter of Adam, Jesus Christ was enabled to exalt our
frail and sinful human nature to where it now stands at the
Eight Hand of God.4

our Lord, distinctly presuppose it. And it has been shown in note 3,
p. 147, that it lies at the root of all St. Paul's teaching, as well as
that of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

1 Luke ii. 14. The meaning of the sentence, according to the now
more usually accepted reading, is, most probably, "peace on earth to
men of acceptance" i.e.} to men God's good pleasure in whom has now
been revealed.

2 Rom. viii. 3. 3 Heb. iv. 15.

4 Eph. ii. 5, 6 ; Col. iii. 5. We do not attempt in the text to
elucidate the mystery how Christ was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of
the Virgin Mary. But some of our own divines have endeavoured

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OP JESUS CHRIST. 149

This doctrine of the Incarnation of the Son of God was
a fruitful source of misunderstanding in early times. Not
only, as we have seen, was it thought impossible, and even
blasphemous, to imagine that God could unite Himself to
a thing so essentially impure as matter, but, even when
this difficulty had been surmounted, all kinds of erroneous
opinions concerning the nature of the Hypostatic Union1
were broached. The first of these was that of Apollinaris,
Bishop of Hierapolis in Galatia, who, in the vehemence
of his opposition to the Arians, taught that the Godhead
supplied the place of the human soul and spirit of Jesus,
and that His assumption of humanity was confined to the
uniting Himself with a human body.2 The next and
most serious controversy on the subject of the union
of the two natures was provoked by the teaching of
Ncstorius, Patriarch of Constantinople. Its origin may be
traced to the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, an able,
learned, and saintly Syrian divine, who, in controversy
with Apollinaris, taught that our Lord as Man, though in
habited by the Divine Logos in a way which differed from
His inhabitation of any other man, yet was brought into

to throw light upon it. See HOOKER, Book V., chap, liii., and
PEARSON, On the Creed, p. 166, note. Bishop Pearson cautions us
not to suppose that "the Spirit did perform any proper act of
generation which is the foundation of paternity." In other words,
our apprehension of this Divine mystery is not to be natural or
carnal, but supernatural or spiritual. The Holy Spirit, no doubt,
did take " the very first original of our nature, before it was come to
have any personal human subsistence," and imparted a new life to it.
But "whoso taketh" cognizance of this Divine mystery "must from
carnal thoughts be free." Of. the expression in the Litany, "by the
mystery of Thy Holy Incarnation," and a noble passage in ORIGEN,
De Principiis, ii. 2.

1 i.e. the union of two natures in one Person. See note A, at
end of volume.

2 Or almost confined. Apollinaris conceded a kind of ^v^n to our
Lord. See NEANDER, Ch. Hist., iv. 101 (Bonn's Translation), and
DORNER, On the Person of Christ, vol. ii., p. 352 sqq.

150 THE CREED.

closer relations with God after His Baptism, and again
after His Resurrection, than He had been before.1 There
had been, for a considerable period, a divergence between
the Syrian and the Alexandrian schools of theology;
the former being inclined to anticipate modern ideas in
its employment of reason in treating of things Divine,
the latter being inclined to take a more mystical view,
and to exalt revelation at the expense of reason.2 The
rivalry of the patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria
fanned this opposition into a flame. Alexandria, which
recognized St. Mark as its founder, and had a right to
consider itself as only second to an Apostolic see, saw
with little satisfaction the sudden rise of the mushroom
see of Constantinople to the second place among the patri
archates, simply on account of the secular privileges which
attached to the " new Rome " on the Bosphorus, founded
by, and bearing the name of, the Emperor Constantine.3
Nestorius took up the views of Theodore of Mopsuestia with
energy, not to say passion, and, in his sermons in his
cathedral, inveighed against the term OCOTOKOS (God-bearer)
applied to the Virgin Mary.4 This doctrine was at once

1 Canon Gore, in his description of Theodore's view, hardly does
justice to Theodore's assertion of the special manner in which the
Logos inhabited the Man Christ Jesus. See NEANDER, pp. 117, 118.

2 For further information on this point consult NEANDER, Ch.
Hist., iv., pp. 107-119, and DORNER, On the Person of Christ, vol. iii.,
sec. i. chaps, i. ii.

3 This appears clear from the fact that Theophilus, Patriarch of
Alexandria, treated the saintly Chrysostom no bettor than his nephew
Cyril did the heretic Nestorius. SOCRATES (Hist. Eccl. vi. 17) tells
us of a free fight at Constantinople between the partisans of Theophilus
and of Chrysostom.

4 In later times this term has been represented as equivalent to
the term "Mother of God." This is far from being the case. The
word mother implies some communication of being, and the words
"Mother of God" certainly might lead to the inference that it
was supposed that Christ in some way derived His Divinity from

THE EEDBMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRISt. 151

challenged by Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, who, with
equal, or even with greater, violence, contended that to
deny the applicability of the term OCOTOKOS to the Blessed
Virgin were to divide Him into two Christs, the one Divine,
the other human.1 A General Council was called at Ephesus,
in A.D. 431, to pronounce upon this question, and it was
decided that Christ, though possessing two natures, was,
nevertheless, one Person; that, by reason of this unity of
person, there was a communicatio idiomatum, or a

His mother. So Canon BRIGHT tells us, Waymarfcs, p. 180. And,
no doubt, the confusion of thought engendered by the use of this
word has been, as in many other cases, the parent of heresies,
and has tended to the exaggerated honours paid to the Virgin
both in the East and West. But the term 0eoToif6s simply means
that He Whom the Virgin brought into the world was truly and
personally God. [See THEODORET, Haer. Fab. Compend., IV. 12.]

1 SOCRATES, in his Ecclesiastical History (book vii.), is very im
partial in condemning Nestorius and Cyril alike. He speaks
of the levity and vainglory of the former, and of his harshness
in stirring up persecution against heretics. He clears him from the
charge of Photinianism (a form of Sabellianism) and of denying
the Divinity of Christ, and asserts that his unreasonable horror of
the term deoroitos was due to ignorance. He also speaks strongly
about the intemperate violence of Cyril in his quarrel with the
prefect Orestes, and holds him, to a certain extent, responsible for
the murder of the female philosopher Hypatia (of whom Socrates
speaks with much respect), by the encouragement he gave to
"murders and fights, and things of a like sort" (vii. 15). He
places Nestorius in a more favourable light when he records how,
amid the furious discussions which disgraced the Council of Ephesus,
Nestorius, scandalized by the mutual excommunications and deposi
tions, cried, "Let Mary be called Theotokos, and let these miserable
discords cease" (vii. 34). Theodoret (who, however, had suffered
from his violence) says of Cyril, while he yet lived, that "he appeared
to have been both born and educated for the injury of the Churches "
(Ep. 157) ; and at his death rejoices at the deliverance of the Church
from a general source of mischief, and complains, moreover, that
while the good are early taken from us, the bad are frequently long-
lived (Ep. 180). Neander considers this Epistle genuine, though it
has only come down to us in a Latin version.

152

CREED.

communication of attributes, whereby God might be spoken
of as being born, dying, rising again, and the like ; and
that, therefore, the term &OTOKOS might be, and ought to be,
applied to our Blessed Lord.1 The Alexandrian school, as
has so often been the case in controversy, carried its victory
too far, and pushed the theory of the Unity of Person in
Christ to such lengths as to deny the possibility of the
development in our Lord's human nature which is expressly
asserted in Luke ii. 25. Cyril's successor at Alexandria,
Dioscorus, encouraged a monk at Constantinople, Eutyches
by name, to defy his patriarch, Flavian, and to teach that
the manhood of Christ, when united to the Godhead, had
been absorbed into it in such a way as to annihilate its
natural properties of limitation and the like. Theodorct,
Bishop of Cyrus, an old opponent of Cyril, who had been
excommunicated for Nestorian leanings and his defence
of the orthodoxy of Theodore of Mopsuestia, came forward
once more in support of Flavian, and in opposition to
Eutyches. A General Council was once more summoned at
Ephesus, A.D. 449, and decided in favour of Eutyches ; but
its proceedings were carried on with such violence that its
decisions were at once repudiated throughout Christendom.2

1 It is a mistake to suppose that the Council of Ephesus drew up
any definition of the faith on the point of the indivisibility of the
Person of Christ. It simply condemned Nestorius for having pro
tested against the use of the word Theotokos. The Council of
Chalcedon, however, issued a decree on the point.

2 It should be borne in mind (see also p. 129) that the early
Oecumenical Council are regarded as such, not, as some learned
divines (e.g., Dr. Martineau) seem to imagine, because a majority of
their members came to a decision which was afterwards imposed on
the minority, but by reason of their subsequent acceptance throughout
Christendom. Thus the decisions of Nicaea were not accepted
until after fifty-six years of conflict : they were finally re-affirmed at
Constantinople. The decisions at Ephesus in 431, and Chalcedon
in 451, were resisted for a time by large bodies of Christians. But

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OP JESUS CHRIST, 153

The patriarch Flavian died shortly after this second Council
of Ephesus, in consequence of the violence which had been
used towards him, and the Synod obtained the name of the
Latrocinium, or Eobber Synod, from the ruffianism which
disgraced its proceedings. Another General Council was
held at Chalcedon, in the year 451 A.D., in which the
doctrine of the Unity of Christ's Person was balanced by
the assertion of the duality of His Nature.

The decisions of these Councils were energetically resisted
for a considerable time. This resistance was largely due to
the violence with which the controversy was carried on,
and the savage persecutions inflicted by the victorious party
upon its defeated antagonists. Many theologians to whom
the Catholic Church is deeply indebted — the able and clear
sighted Cyril of Alexandria, for instance — have irretrievably
disgraced themselves by the intrigues and artifices they did
not disdain to employ in order to ensure their victory, and
by the cruel vengeance they took on their adversaries when
they had them in their power. The Nestorian schism, by
the aid of its missionaries in India, is said to have attained
such proportions as at one time to outnumber the whole of
the rest of Christendom. But the dual personality of Christ
proved an unsafe foundation on which to build. The

this resistance is no longer maintained. The Nestorian and Eutychian
communities are kept apart from Catholic Christendom, not by the
decrees of the third and fourth General Councils, which they have
declared themselves ready to accept, but by political dissensions, racial
jealousies, and the like. The Turkish Government moreover is bitterly
opposed to Christian reunion, and has resorted to violence, and even
poison, in order to keep the Nestorians and Eutychians apart from
the Orthodox Church of the East. The idea that the decisions of
Oecumenical Councils were imposed by the voice of a bare majority
is derived from the later Councils of the Western Church, and
notably from the proceedings of the Vatican Council in 1870,
though even there the minority, though not without pressure, finally
accepted the decisions of the majority,

154 THE CKEED.

Nestorian Churches gradually dwindled away, until at
present they consist of a few thousand ignorant and
downtrodden peasants in the mountains of Assyria,1 who
no longer insist upon the peculiar doctrines of Nestorius.
The Eutychians, or, as they are frequently called, Mono-
physites,2 or Jacobites,3 have been more fortunate. That
portion of the Armenian Church which has not been
persuaded into submission to the See of Eome still stands
apart from the Orthodox Churches of the East, though it
no longer proclaims the doctrines of Eutyches. Its members
are men of ability, intelligence, and independence of spirit ;
and could it be liberated from the oppressions of its
Mahornmedan masters, it would hold an influential position
in Christendom. The Copts in Egypt belong to the same
religious body. But they are sunk in ignorance and super
stition, a condition which the Mahommedan yoke in Egypt
has tended to intensify and to prolong.4

Before leaving the question of the Oecumenical Councils
and their decisions,5 it may be well to say a few words on

1 The English Church has lately sent instructors to this dispirited
remnant, at its own request.

2 Those who assert the one nature of Christ.

3 So named from Jacob of Edessa, a notable leader of the Mono-
physite party.

4 A mission was sent from England to the Copts in 1843, and after
having languished for a time, it was renewed about ten years ago
But the Copts are not so grateful for our assistance as the Assyrian
Nestorians, and the mission has not, as yet, been very successful.
[The Coptic Church has now (1910) begun to flourish, chiefly in con
sequence of the intelligent zeal of its laity.]

5 The fifth Oecumenical Council, held at Constantinople in A.D. 553,
under the influence of the Emperor Justinian, condemned the so-called
11 Three Chapters," propositions believed to have a Nestorian tendency,
extracted from the works of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theocloret, and
Ibas. The sixth Oecumenical Council, held at Constantinople in
A.D. 680, at the instance of the Emperor Constantino Pogonatus, con
demned Monotheletism, or the doctrine which assigned only one will
to Christ. In neither of these Councils did the Roman pontiffs hold

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OP JESUS CHRIST. 155

the functions of the Church in developing the doctrine
which Christ has commissioned her to disseminate. It
must not be supposed that there is any infallibility attaching
to the decisions of a General Council, as such. As we have
already seen, those decisions, when promulgated, were almost
invariably fiercely, and for a time successfully, challenged.
Their binding nature consists in the fact of their ultimate
acceptance by the vast majority of the members of the
Christian Church. That acceptance was, no doubt, followed
by the exclusion of the minority from the pale of Catholic
Christendom. But unless this exclusion had been a just
exclusion, we may be quite sure that the logic of facts
would have compelled the majority to abandon their
attitude. The best justification for the action of Athanasius,
Hilary, Cyril, Flavian, Theodoret, and Leo is the disappear
ance, more or less complete, of the doctrine of their
antagonists from the face of the earth. We conclude
therefore that the general consent of Christians at large,

a very creditable position in the matter of orthodoxy. At the fifth,
Vigilius, who, after many vacillations of opinion, had committed
himself to the theology of the "Three Chapters," was condemned
by the Council. He ultimately made his submission. At the sixth,
Honorius, who had adopted Monothelite views, was anathematized
after he had been some time dead. These two instances of heretical
pontiffs, together with that of Liberius during the Arian controversy,
have given great trouble to Roman theologians. By dint of vast
ingenuity in the manipulation of facts, they have endeavoured to
show that these three Roman bishops were neither heretics, nor
condemned as such. But Church historians, such as Neander
(whose accuracy and honesty none who have consulted his authorities
will be inclined to dispute), having no foregone conclusion to defend,
but only a plain story to tell, have entertained no doubt whatever
that these Popes did fall into heresy, and were condemned for so
doing. The orthodoxy of these prelates will be maintained only by
those who, on grounds independent of historical research, have
managed to convince themselves that heresy in a Pope is an im
possibility, and who are therefore compelled to wrest history into
accordance with their views.

156 THE CREED.

and not the mere verdict of Councils, is the principle on
which the dogmatic teaching of the Church is based.

A further consideration tends to strengthen this conclu
sion. The dogmatic decisions of the early Church were
rather negative than positive. They were intended to
exclude error, not to proclaim new truth. They were
danger signals rather than developments. It was found,
by actual experience, that if it were taught that the Godhead
of the -Son was not identical in Essence with that of the
Father, the whole Christian scheme, as it has been handed
down in Scripture, collapsed in a moment. So again it
was found that if the doctrine of the One Person of Christ
were not firmly held, men came to believe, not in the
Word made Flesh, but in two separate beings, one of them
more or less closely united to the other ; while, on the other
hand, if the two natures of Christ were not strongly
insisted on, the true manhood of Christ disappeared alto
gether, and men either regarded it as absorbed into the
Godhead, or they conceived of a being who, subsequently to
the Incarnation, was neither God nor man, but a kind of
intermediate being compounded of the two. But the
Christian scheme is only conceivable under the hypothesis
that " God and Man is one Christ." This, moreover, is
why the ancient Councils invariably appealed to Scripture.
They pretended to set forth no new truths, but only to
guard the safety of the old. The early Church always held
with our own, that what "is not found" in Scripture, nor
"may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any
man that it should be believed as an article of faith, or be
thought requisite or necessary to salvation." Thus, when
representing the decrees of the Oecumenical Councils as neces
sary to the preaching of the Christian faith, we do not bar
the progress of Christian thought, or bind Christian theology
for ever by the prevalent opinions of past ages ; but, to use

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 157

the striking simile of Canon Liddon, the decisions of the
Oecumenical Councils are as the rails on which we seekers
after truth may arrive swiftly and smoothly at the goal we
desire to reach.1

The authority for the Catholic doctrine of the Incarna
tion, as defined by the third and fourth Oecumenical
Councils, is to be found in the clearness with which Scrip
ture sets forth the Divinity and Humanity of our Blessed
Lord. It is obvious that the Godhead is incapable of
change. This truth is involved in the fundamental idea
of God as presented to us in the Scriptures both of the
Old and New Covenant.2 Any change, therefore, in the
enjential Nature of God, in consequence of His taking
the Manhood, or, as Canon Liddon has preferred to put
it, Manhood3 into Himself, is a simple impossibility.
The only question, therefore, on which we need enter is
the nature of the relations between the Godhead and the
Manhood as described to us in Holy Writ. That the
Manhood remained unaltered in all essentials4 is clear

1 Some Words for God, Sermon III. The Freedom of the Spirit,
p. 82. On the question whether the Homoousion was a development,
see also LIDDON, Hampton Lectures, p. 641, sqq. "The Creed adopted
by the Council of Nicaea did nothing more for Christian science, in
the first instance, than define the goal at which it should aim ; it
neither did, nor pretended to attain to the goal." DORNEE, On the
Person of Christ, vol. ii. p. 261.

2 See p. 83.

3 Bampton Lectures, p. 387 (1st ed.). "To speak of Christ as a
Man may lead to a serious misconception. He is the Man, or, rather,
He is Man. Christ's Manhood is not of itself an individual being ;
it is not a seat and centre of personality ; it has no conceivable
existence apart from the act of self- incarnation, whereby the Eternal
Word called it into being, and made it His own. It is a vesture
which He has folded around His Person."

4 In all essentials, we may say, because sin, though it must be
predicated of all men, Christ only excepted, is obviously not a neces-
wrv characteristic of humanity.

158 THE CREED.

from the language of the Scriptures as applied to Jesus
Christ. He is born into the world a feeble infant,
as all other men are. He grows in intelligence as in
stature.1 He eats,2 drinks,3 sleeps,4 hungers,5 is tired,6
weeps,7 experiences the ordinary emotions of humanity.
He is capable of special personal attachments.8 Moreover,
He uses language which, when the fact of His Godhead
is proved, shows that He was also perfect Man. The
words "My Father is greater than I,"9 if they do not, as
it has been shown that they do not, refer to His Godhead,
distinctly affirm that His Manhood is a separate nature. So,
also, His ignorance of the day and hour of the Judgment
bear witness to the fact that the indwelling of the Divinity
in Him was not incompatible with the limitations inseparable
from humanity. "We are even compelled to acknowledge that
Jesus Christ had a separate will as Man, for we find Him
saying, "Not My Will, but Thine, be done,10 and "I am
come not to do Mine own Will, but the Will of Him that
sent Me."11 That this will was capable of feeling, as well
as undergoing temptation, is clear from the Agony in the
garden,12 and from the "horror of great darkness" that
fell on Christ as He hung upon the Cross,"13 thus showing
that He "hath been in all points tempted like as we are,
yet without sin."14 The reality of Christ's humanity is
thus conclusively demonstrated. The Unity of Person
must be inferred, not so much from the letter of Scripture
as from its general tone and spirit.15 There is not the

1 Luke ii. 52. 2 Matt. ix. 10 ; xxvi. 21, &c. 3 John iv. 7.
4 Matt. viii. 25, &c. 5 Matt. iv. 2, &c. 6 John iv. 6.

7 Luke xix. 41 ; John xi. 35. 8 John xi. 5 ; xiii. 23, &c.

9 John xiv. 28. 10 Luke xxiii. 42. n John vi. 38.

12 Matt. xxvi. 37, and the parallel passages in St. Mark and St. Luke ;
also Heb. v. 7, and John xii. 27.

13 Matt, xxvii. 46 ; Mark xv. 34. 14 Heb. iv. 15.

15 Two important passages — Acts xx. 28, and 1 Tim. iii. 16 — cannot
be cited in support of this view, because the reading is disputed. See
Pearson on this point.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 159

slightest hint of any separation between the Godhead and
the Manhood, save in the mysterious utterance of Christ
upon the Cross, which speaks of God having "forsaken"
the Man Christ Jesus.1 On the other hand, the closeness of
the union is distinctly asserted in such words as "The Word
became flesh," "He took the form of a bond-servant."2
Again, in the Epistle to the Colossians (i. 14-22) we have
the truth yet more emphatically asserted. For He Who
"created all things," Who was "before all things," and
in Whom "all things consist," in Whom, moreover, it
pleased the Father that "all the fulness" of the Godhead
" should dwell," was also He Who, by " His Blood," brought
about our redemption, and Who by it " reconciled all things
unto Himself, in the Body of His Flesh, through death."
It is impossible to express the personal union between the
Godhead and the Manhood in clearer or stronger terms than
in this passage. Once more, though in Hebrews i.-iii. the
Godhead and the Manhood are put in less close and
emphatic juxtaposition than in Colossians i. 14-22, it must
be clear to every one who reads the passage that He Who
in chapter i. is called God — the Brightness of His Father's
glory and the impress of His Person, by Whom the founda
tion of the world was laid — is He Who " purged our sins "
by the " suffering of death," and Whose Manhood was
perfected by the endurance of suffering.

Thus God the Son and the Man Christ Jesus are every
where spoken of as One Person, save in one particular
mysterious utterance, which, as we have just seen, may
not unreasonably be interpreted as indicating the perfection
of our Blessed Lord's Manhood, and His consequent posses
sion of a real human consciousness. One particular aspect,

1 [This forsaking would appear not to have been actual, but mystical.
The separation was realized, without having been effected. Christ, as
the Representative Head of Humanity, felt and recognized the awful
gulf which man's sin had interposed between man and God.]

2 See Phil. ii. 7. Of. 2 Cor. viii, 9.

160 THE CREED.

however, of the union between the Godhead and the
Manhood has not yet been mentioned. It takes us into
a region where any great precision of dogmatic statement
is felt to be out of place. This aspect is the relation of
the Manhood to the Godhead after the Resurrection and
Ascension. As we shall hereafter see, the psychic1 Body of
our Lord disappeared after His Resurrection, and it was
replaced by a spiritual Body, the precise constitution of
which, as well as the laws to which it is subject, have not
been fully revealed. We shall see, however, that it was
a material Body, and that it followed the law of the
Incarnation by having a link of connection with the old.
But beyond this we have no information ; nor do we know
of what growth or development the soul or spirit of the
Man Christ Jesus was capable when freed from their
connection with "the likeness of sinful flesh." There are
not wanting passages in Holy Writ which imply a far
vaster extension, for our manhood as well as His, of the
potentialities involved in that which was originally created
"in the image" and "after the likeness" of God, than
theology has at present dared to conceive of. We can but
say that " things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, and
which entered not into the heart of man" — such things
hath "God prepared for them that love Him."

It would not be well to leave this subject without a
reference to the renewed controversy which has arisen on
the union of Christ's two Natures in our own time. It has
been caused by the recent developments of Old Testament
criticism, which, as some think, are inconsistent with the
regard which ought to be paid to the utterances of God
" manifest in the flesh." Those who are inclined to accept
those developments have insisted strongly on the doctrine
of the limitation of our Lord's human knowledge ; and in
close connection with this doctrine, theories of the Kenosis,
1 See p. 147.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OP JESUS CHRIST. 161

as it is called, or " self -empty ing " of our Lord, have been
revived, which have found great favour with a certain
school of Lutheran divines.1 But it is not unreasonable
to observe that the translation in Philippians ii. 7 of the
words tavrov eV-evoxrev by " He emptied Himself " is open
to serious question.2 Many of the learned disquisitions of

1 See, for these theories, the learned and able Cunningham Lectures
of Dr. BRUCE on the Kenosis. Canon BRIGHT, in his Sermons on
the Incarnation (Appendix, p. 301), writes as follows on this subject :
, ' Given, then, the doctrine of Christ's Divinity as belonging to, and
inherent in, His eternal personality, it must surely appear impossible
for Him to lay aside His ' essential character ' as God, or to suspend
His Divine 'manner of existence,' when He condescended to adopt
the ' essential character ' of humanity, or the human ' manner of
existence.'" He also quotes the Rev. H. G. C. MOULE as saying, in
his Commentary on Philippians (p. 300), that the "view" that "our
Lord practically parted with His Deity" "during the days of His
flesh," and that He "became the (Incarnate) Son of God only in His
glorification after death," seems to him to "contravene many plain
testimonies of the Gospels, and, most of all, the pervading tone of
the Gospels," which " present to us" in Jesus Christ "a Figure meek
and lowly indeed, but always infinitely and mysteriously majestic."
So likewise Canon HUTCHINGS, in his Sermon- Sketches (p. 260),
says : "When Christ is said to have laid aside His glory, and to
have become poor, He does not empty Himself of His Divine Per
fections — for that would be to cease to be God — for God's Perfections
are His Nature. He laid aside their exercise and visible expression,
as a king would remain a king if he left his palace and lived in a
hovel and dressed like a peasant." The declaration of the Athanasian
Creed, which here represents the tradition of undivided Christendom,
seems sufficient to settle the point for most of us. ' ' The right faith
is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of
God, is God and Man ; God, of the Substance of His Father, begotten
before the worlds, and Man, of the Substance of His mother, born in
the world ; perfect God and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and
human flesh subsisting." See note B, at end.

a Canon GORE'S explanation of these words in his Bampton Lectures
(pp. 158, 160) appears to me, I must confess, to involve an absolute
impossibility. He says that our Lord " abandoned certain pre
rogatives of the Divine mode of existence in order to assume the
human," and that we "know God to possess and use, not only the

162 THE CREED.

divines on this difficult subject, we may fairly contend,
might very well have been preceded by a brief inquiry
into the meaning of words. He "emptied Himself," we
are told. Let us ask first, Who is " He " ? and next, Of
what did He " empty Himself " 1 " He " is clearly God the
Son, and, as the Catholic Church has always taught, God
the Son was and is truly and properly God. Of what, then,
did He " empty Himself " when He became Man 1 Of any
of the essential attributes or " prerogatives" of His Godhead?
Then it follows, of necessity, that for the time, at least, He
ceased to be God — a proposition which it is surely not
too much to say is entirely inconceivable, whether it be
regarded as relating to the period of our Lord's sojourn
here on earth, or whether the self -empty ing is to be
taken as referring to the Being of the Logos henceforward
from the time when the Human Nature was assumed.
The question we are discussing relates, we must not
forget, to the Divine attribute of Omniscience. Whether
the exercise of that attribute in and through the Manhood
is possible or impossible, its abnegation by the Godhead
is surely unthinkable. Thus the translation " emptied
Himself " would seem to involve a contradiction. Moreover
the word KCVOS signifies not only " empty," but " vain " ;
and the word "vain" brings in the subjective element of
our human judgment. Therefore it were far wiser and
safer, on the whole, to render the passage as it is rendered
in the Authorised Version, " He made Himself of no repu-

power to vindicate Himself, but also the power of self-limitation."
One special attribute of Divinity, as we have seen, is unchangeableness.
Any "self-limitation" of Himself by the Logos, therefore, would be
equivalent to the proposition that God ceased to be God. The word
"prerogative," in. its reference to God, requires careful handling.
Prerogative, according to Johnson, means "a special and peculiar
privilege." But all the "privileges" God enjoys are His eternally,
by inalienable right. They are part of His Essence. How, therefore,
can He divest Himself of any of them ? See also note, next page.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 163

tation" Still more desirable is it to avoid drawing hard
and fast conclusions from a rendering which is, at best,
uncertain, and which there is grave reason for believing
unsound. The Kenosis, we may venture to assert, did not
consist, and could not have consisted, in any change or
"limitation" whatever in the Essence of the Eternal Son
of God. It could only refer to our apprehensions of Him,
to whom He appeared shorn of all those Divine attributes
which we now know to have been His from all eternity.
There is, however, it must be confessed, another side to the
question. While it is necessary to speak strongly and
decidedly in behalf of the Perfect Godhead of Christ, in
Whom, as with His Father, there is "no variableness,
neither shadow of turning,"1 it behoves us to speak with all
caution and hesitation on points which the voice of the

1 James i. 17. Even the Arians and Semi-Arians were careful to
maintain that the Logos was ArpeTrros, ava\\oluTos (unchanged and
unchangeable), a fact which was confessed on all hands, save of those
of the simple humanitarians, throughout the Nicene controversy.
SOCRATES, Hist. ii. 10, gives a form of Creed drawn up at Antioch by
the Arianizers, in which these words are used. Athanasius steadily
maintains the same proposition. He says, in his First Oration against
the Arians (chap, xxii.), that "if God is immutable (drpeTrros), and
if He always remains as He is, of necessity His Image must remain
as He is, and not be changed (KO.I ou Tpa-n-^aeTai). In chap. xxxv.
he asks again how that which is subject to change (rpeirrb^) can be
said to be like Him Who is unchangeable (drpeTrros), or how can
anyone be said to see the Father in the Son, if the former be un
changeable, the latter not so ? Similarly in chaps, xxxvi. and xxxix.
He is even more distinct in chap, xxxvi. He asserts that when the
Son became Man, "He displayed His sameness and unchangeableness to
those who thought Him to have been changed by assuming flesh, and to
have become something else. " In his Epistle to Epictetus he repeatedly
denies that the Word, in becoming flesh, underwent any change in
His essential Nature. (See chap. iv. 8.) Theodoret, following the
reading of the Authorised Version in John iii. 13 ("Who is in
heaven "), deduces from it that while our Lord was a citizen among
men He was not only in heaven, but was not separated (oik tf/cextfytoro)
from His Father. Interpret, in Psalm Ixvii. So also in Ep. to Tim.,

164 THE CREED.

Church has not decided. That the glory of the Eternal
Word suffered some eclipse, at least to our apprehen
sions of it, while He carried about our mortal flesh,
admits of no dispute. But this eclipse, or, as it is
called by theologians, Kenosis, of the Eternal Word,
was in all probability caused by the insufficiency of the
medium through which He thought fit to reveal Himself.
The finite cannot contain the infinite. In passing through
the medium of the finite, the glory of the Infinite must, of
necessity, suffer eclipse or diminution to the apprehensions
of those who perceive it through that medium, just as the
beams of the sun are shorn of their brightness by passing
through coloured glass, or, to use a still more accurate simile,
as the human eye is altogether unable to receive and to
reproduce some of the sun's actinic or caloric rays. Thus,
we may believe with reverence, may the limitation of the
Saviour's knowledge be explained. It is due, not to any
" self -empty ing " on the part of the Divine Word of any of
His Divine attributes, or even of the "unreserved exercise
of Divine prerogatives incompatible with the acceptance of
the limitations attaching to humanity,"1 but to the in-
IV. p. 1215 (ed. Schultze). In the latter passage Theodoret maintains
in commenting on Phil. ii. 6, that the Word remained unaltered and
unchanged in Nature after His Incarnation. That is to say, the
attributes or "prerogatives" of the Father were transmitted to the
Son during the period of His humiliation. It should be remembered
that for some time Theodoret was accused of denying the Unity of the
Person of Christ. In a similar passage in his Commentary on Ephesians
(chap. v. 32) he repeats the same statement, adding that He only "ap
peared " to leave His Father. So also ORIGEN, De Principiis, IV. 30,
denies that anything of Divinity was wanting in Christ. [Nor must we
forget the Anathema which was attached to the Nicen* Creed, in refer
ence to those who regarded the Logos as capable of conversion or mu
tation. No genuine Catholic, surely, can fail to respect this utterance.]
1 BRIGHT, On the Incarnation, p. 299. With the deepest respect
for the opinion of so profound and accurate a scholar as Dr. Bright,
I nevertheless feel constrained to maintain that had the "unreserved
exercise of Divine prerogatives " been really " incompatible with the
acceptance of the limitations attaching to humanity," then the

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OP JESUS CHRIST. 165

capacity of such a medium as humanity, even when admitted
to the closest personal union with Divinity, to contain, much
less to transmit, all the Knowledge and Wisdom and Power
of the Most High.1 In this way, too, it seems possible to
explain the advance of the child Jesus in intelligence
without introducing any hazardous theories about a change
in the unchangeable. The Manhood, as it expanded, became
continually a fitter vehicle for the manifestation of the
Divine.2

To sum up what has been said about the Doctrine of
the Incarnation of the Son of God. The doctrine of the
Catholic Church, as defined in her Councils, we have seen
to be as follows : The Eternal Son of God, the Unchanged
and Unchangeable Word, Himself True and Perfect God,
one in Essence with the Father, took man's nature in the
womb of the Blessed Virgin. And He did so in such sort

Incarnation of God the Word would have been a simple impossibility.
The Word when Incarnate, we may with all reverence venture to contend ,
retained all His high "prerogatives " unchanged, and was, as ever, un
fettered in their exercise. It were better, surely, to put it thus— it
was impossible, in the very nature of things, that those " prerogatives"
could be manifested, or even exercised in their fulness, in and through
the Manhood. [In the life of Canon Bright some friendly correspond
ence will be found between him and the writer on this point.]

1 Even this truth requires to be applied with caution. "All the
fulness of the Godhead," we are told, "dwells in Jesus Christ"
(crw^ari/ccDs). Bishop Lightfoot, in loc., renders "in bodily manifesta
tion." Thus the manifestation of the Godhead in the flesh was a
very full, and by no means inadequate, manifestation ; yet it had
its limits, imposed by the necessity of the case. So ORIGEN
(De Principiis, IV. i. 30) says that all the majesty of Christ's Divinity
could not possibly be confined within the limits of a body occupying
so small a space as His.

2 The difficult passage (1 Cor. xv. 28) may, perhaps, be explained
as indicating a similar advance throughout our sojourn in the
intermediate state, until we can discern the Godhead for ourselves
without the intervention of the Manhood of the Son. When His
Church is able thus immediately to apprehend God, the mediatorial
kingdom, it may be, of the Man Christ Jesus comes to an end, and
God is "all in all."

166 THE CREED.

that " two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the
Godhead and the Manhood, were joined together in one
Person, never to be divided,"1 and that, by reason of this
conjunction, there is what has been called a communicatio
idiomatum, or transfer of attributes, so that we may speak
of God manifest in the Flesh, God being .born, dying, rising
again, or even, in a sense, with Hooker, that " man is really
made God." But in this mysterious Hypostatic union —
see p. 149 — there is no "confusion of substance."3 The
Godhead remains unchanged, and the manhood, though
"taken into God,"2 remains true manhood still, though
capable of infinite growth and development, by reason of
the "unity of Person."2

II. The next point to which our attention must be
directed is the practical working of this root-principle of the
Christian faith. We have seen that the main object of
the work of Christ was not forgiveness, but, rather,
restoration and development. It involved, first of all, the
restoration of man, as an offender, to the favour of Him
Whom he had offended by sin — in other words, what
has been variously styled in the Scriptures "forgiveness,"
"remission," "reconciliation," "justification." It went on
to impart to man that holiness which he had lost. But it
did not stop there. It aimed not merely at replacing man
in the position he had lost at the Fall, but at raising him to
a far higher standard of perfection than any to which he had
yet attained. This fact must not be regarded as one of the
subsidiary results of reconciliation or justification. It was the
main object of Christ's Incarnation. The question of forgive
ness and reconciliation, or atonement,3 must be deferred to the

1 Article II. of the Church of England.

2 Athanasian Creed.

3 These words were originally identical in meaning, though, in our
modern phraseology, there is a wide distinction between them. See
p. 205.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 167

next section. At present we confine ourselves to the effect
of the Incarnation on man's salvation. And it will be seen
how wonderfully the Christian doctrine on this point has
anticipated the theories of evolution and development so
strongly insisted on at the present time in natural science.
The doctrine of Scripture and the early Church is that
man's salvation, i.e. his deliverance from the dominion
of sin, is effected by the implanting in him the germ
of the higher life which Jesus Christ came to give.
This has been supposed to be the meaning of the important
discourse to Nicodemus. When questioned as to His
doctrine by a distinguished Jewish teacher, our Lord
replied by laying down the important principle that
" Except a man be begotten again," that is, unless he have
the germ of a new and higher life implanted in him by
the Holy Spirit, " he cannot enter into the kingdom of
heaven."1 St. John, in his Prologue to the Gospel, repeats
this statement in his own words when he says that "as
many as received" the Eternal Word, "to them gave He
the right (or power) to become children of God."2 The
witness, as we saw at the outset,3 which the Apostles came
to deliver, was that God gave us Eternal Life in His Son,
so that to have the Son was to have that life, and not to
have Him was not to have it.4 This life — that of the
Eternal Word — is described by St. James as implanted,5
and as able to save us. So St. Peter describes us as
" begotten anew by the Word of God living and remaining
for ever."6 And St. Paul tells us that we are united with

1 John iii. 5. It is curious that the Revised Version, which, in 1 John,
uses the translation "begotten," here adopts the rendering "born."

2 John i. 12. 3 See chap. i.

4 1 John v. 11, 12. See also chap. iv. 9. The object of Christ's
mission is here declared to be, not the acquisition for us of forgiveness,
but the impartation to us of life.

, James i. 21. 6 1 Peter i. 23.

168 THE CREED.

Christ first of all in the likeness of His Death, and that
as a result we shall be transformed into the likeness of His
Resurrection.1 Another result is the infusion into us of
the Divine humanity of Christ, as He tells us in John vi.f
where He insists on the necessity of our dwelling in Him
through our partaking of His Flesh and Blood, i.e., His
Human Nature. And yet these words "flesh and blood"
are not to be understood in any carnal sense. The Flesh
and Blood of Christ are to be assimilated, not by any
purely natural process, but by the influence of the Divine
Spirit on the spirits of those who receive them.2 In the
same direction tend all the passages which speak of "the
new man," as opposed to "the old man."3 Man is re
created in Jesus Christ.4 And so do all those which speak
of renewal, the gift of eternal life, and the like.5 If this
process is attributed to the work of the Holy Spirit in the
soul, so is the whole work of redemption and sanctification
in its practical aspect, as we shall see further explained
when we come to consider the work of the Third Person
in the Blessed Trinity.

The impartation of the new Life which is in Christ
is frequently connected with the reception of the Sacra
ment of Baptism, as in John iii. 5 ; Romans vi. 3, 4 ;
Colossians ii. 12. The reason of this is to be found in
the fact that, as we shall see hereafter,6 the Church of
Christ is a visible society, into which Baptism is the

1 Rom. vi. 5. Cf. Col. ii. 12.

2 John vi. 63. The words, " It is the Spirit that maketh alive"
(fwoTTOiouv), can hardly be interpreted of the human spirit, even
though "spirit" is frequently opposed to "flesh" in Scripture.

3 Eph. ii. 15 ; iv. 22-24. Col. iii. 9, 10.

4 2 Cor. v. 17.

5 Rom. xii. 2 ; 2 Cor. iv. 16 ; Gal. vi. 15 ; Col. iii. 10 ; Titus iii. 5.
Of. also Rom. vi. 4, 23 ; Col. iii. 3, 4 ; 1 John iii. 14, &c.

6 See chap. vi.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OP JESUS CHRIST. 169

appointed means of admission.1 Admission into the Church
involves a participation in all the privileges of membership
in the Church, and therefore, of necessity, in the first and
most elementary of those privileges — the possession of the
life that comes from Christ, on which all the other privi
leges promised to members of the Church depend. Now we
have just seen that when Nicodemus came to our Lord to
ask for information about His doctrine, the Master replied
by a discourse on what was necessary on the part of those
who would enter His Kingdom. No one, Christ said, could
enter this Kingdom unless he had been "born again" (or
"from above").2 "Regeneration" (or the "new begetting,"
or " birth ") is therefore the starting-point of the scheme of
salvation. And regeneration is the impartation of the germ
of the higher life which Christ came to bestow.3 This
impartation of Christ's Life is the work of the Holy Spirit.
Unfortunately in the course of ages, especially in the West,
where the Church of Christ was dependent on a more or
less unsatisfactory version of the Scriptures, the word re
generation has insensibly shifted its meaning. It began to
imply rather a new birth than a new begetting* After the
conflicts and confusions of the Reformation a fresh divergence
from the original meaning displayed itself. Regeneration
began to be identified with conversion. That is to say, the
effect took the place of the cause. Conversion is the conscious
change in the feelings and aims of the man when he realizes
by faith the whole scheme of salvation by Christ. Protestant
theology, strictly so called, began to teach that this necessary
change was itself the regeneration of which Christ spoke,
whereas the early Church taught that the man must have

1 Matt, xxviii. 19, where Baptism is spoken of as the mode of
"making disciples" (/j-aOyrevcraTe). Cf. Mark xvi. 16. See chap. vii.

2 John iii. 3, 5. 3 John i. 4 ; v. 40 ; x. 10.
4 See p. 140, note.

170 THE CREED.

been already regenerated before such a change could take
place. Our own Church maintains this last view in her
Baptismal office, and as the impartation of a germ of life is
necessarily an instantaneous process, our Church regards it,
so far at least as the Divine purpose is concerned, as having
taken place in the administration of the Sacrament of
initiation, though of course the life thus imparted cannot
be quickened into energy and action without faith on the
part of the recipient. Consequently the words our Church
orders to be spoken immediately after baptism are neither
presumptuous nor unreasonable. If God has commanded
Baptism to be the means of entrance into His Church, if
entrance into the Church involves of necessity a right to all
the privileges of membership — the first and most elementary
of which is the participation in the Divine and human Life
of the Great Head of the Church — then it is no more
than the plain duty of those who admit anyone into the
Church to proclaim the fact that henceforward that first
and most fundamental privilege of the Christian, the
possession of the new Life that comes from Christ, has been
placed within the reach of the person who has just been
admitted into Christ's Body, and therefore into fellowship
with Himself.1 A further difficulty which has been felt in

1 F. W. ROBERTSON (Sermons, Second Series, p. 49) regards this
belief as "degrading God." He pictures the Holy Spirit as being
kept waiting, on this theory, until the parents are pleased to bring
their child to baptism, the priest to baptize it, and so on. But
he fails to remember that the parents and the priest are overruled
in their actions by the same Spirit, who can order everything accord
ing to the counsel of His own Will, including the time when a given
person shall be made a member of the Church, and therefore
partaker of all the privileges involved in such membership. It is
fair, however, on the other hand, to remember that, as all competent
divines are agreed, the grace of God is not tied to Sacraments, and
that there may undoubtedly be cases— how many cases we cannot
possibly tell — when Baptism does but declare and certify a relation
which had come into existence before. The difficulty felt on this

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OP JESUS CHRIST. 171

regard to Infant Baptism has undoubtedly been due to
the subjective conceptions of the whole work of salvation
which have been prevalent since the Reformation.1 Early
Catholic theologians took an objective view of the whole
question ; that is to say, salvation, from their point of view,
was God's work, though man had, with God's help, to bring
his will into accordance with God's before the Spirit which
God has given could carry on the work of sanctification
in his heart. In its origin, therefore, the gift of the New
Life is altogether independent of human beliefs concerning
it. Since the Reformation, however, the human, or sub
jective, element in the work of salvation has been raised
to a level with the Divine. Salvation, regeneration,
election, predestination, have been popularly supposed to
depend, not so much on the Sovereign Will of Him
"Who desires all men to be saved, and come to the
knowledge of the truth,"2 as on the consciousness of the
individual Christian. For the absence on his part of
the conscious realization of the privileges God wills to
bestow on the members of His Son was held to prove, not
that his failure to realize his right to claim such privileges
rendered them useless to him, but that the opportunity
of realizing these privileges had never been bestowed.
Thus, on the one hand, God came to be supposed to have
been capricious in His bestowal of His gifts; and, on the
other, man insensibly came to attach more importance to his

point by the great thinker and divine just referred to is probably due
to the absence of clear conceptions on the scheme of salvation,
and especially of the connection of the Incarnation with that scheme,
which was general at the time when his magnificent sermons were
preached.

1 Professor FROTJDE, in his Lectures on the Council of Trent, has
shown that the conceptions in regard to imputation which Luther
adopted were derived from Western mediaeval theology. Their
application, however, was changed, in his system.

2 1 Tim. ii. 4.

172 THE CREED.

belief that he possessed them than to God's Will, from
which alone these blessings flowed.

It is not the purpose of this book to enter at length
upon this wide question. It will be sufficient to say that
down to the Reformation the contrary view was held, and
this view has been, on the whole, that of a large number of
the best-known divines of the Church of England.1 They
have taught that the whole work of salvation originates
with God, though the concurrence of the human will is, of
course, necessary for the salvation and sanctification of the
individual soul. It is true that the Calvinistic system
depends, theoretically, as much on the Sovereign Will of
God as the system it strove to supersede. But there is this
marked difference between the two, that the Calvinistic
teaching led men to believe that this Sovereign Will only
affected a chosen few, while what we may term Catholic
teaching regards salvation as offered to all. The only indi
cations of God's Will, again, on the Calvinistic view, were
the convictions and experiences of the individual believer.
The Catholic view2 maintains that God's Will to save us

1 Thus BARROW, in his sermon on Justifying Faith, denies the
assertion of many in his day, that such faith " consists in our being
persuaded that our sins are pardoned, or our persons just in God's
esteem ; that we are acceptable to God, and stand possessed of His
favour." " It is," he proceeds, "a, previous condition, without which"
(as the apostle teaches us) " 'it is impossible to please God.'" HAM
MOND, in his Practical Catechism, in the section on Justifying Faith,
regards it as consisting more particularly in " the giving up of the
whole soul entirely to Christ, accepting His promises on His con
ditions, undertaking discipleship on Christ's terms." Bishop BULL'S
Harmonia Apostolica, in which he deals with the supposed divergence
between the teaching of St. Paul and St. James on this point, is the
best exposition of the doctrines of this school.

2 Perhaps it may be necessary to explain that by the term
" Catholic" here I mean to indicate the view held by English
theologians who have accepted the teaching of the early Church
on this point, rather than that of the disciples of Luther and
Calvin.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 173

is altogether independent of our personal opinions or
beliefs; though, of course, our concurrence with that Will
is necessary if the purpose of God to effect our own
individual salvation is not to be frustrated. Catholic theo
logians have therefore been accustomed to see in Infant
Baptism not only a declaration of the Will of God to
save and sanctify the soul of the infant thus brought to
be admitted into Christ's Church, but an actual bestowal
of the powers without which such salvation and sanctifica-
tion would be impossible. Yet such conveyance of the
necessary powers has never been regarded as absolute, but
merely potential. That is to say, it is the Will of God
that the Divine gift of salvation shall be placed within the
reach of every soul, without exception.1 But the extent to
which that gift becomes the actual inheritance of each
individual soul, will be in precise proportion to the extent
to which that soul realizes its possession of it.

There are therefore two conditions necessary for the
salvation of the soul — the Divine gift, and the individual
realization of that gift. The Divine gift is the Life of the
Lord Jesus Christ ; the indispensable condition of its appro
priation is Faith.2 And Faith, as we have already seen,3 con
sists of two parts — the realization of the truths of the unseen
world, and the impulse which enables us to frame our own
conduct in accordance with the truths we have thus realized.

The Christian Church, consisting, as it does, of men
pledged to a belief in the purifying and elevating character
of the Life of her Lord, is thus a visible expression of the
Divine purpose to save all mankind. Each person intro
duced into that society has the power given him, if he will

1 1 Tim. ii. 4. See further under chap. vii. sec. 2.
3 The gift of God, and our realization of that gift, are thus, as it
were, the father and mother of our redeemed life.
8 See pp. 20, 25.

174 THE ORBED.

but use it, to conquer all temptations, to purify himself from
all the pollutions of evil doing, and to conform himself to
the Image of Jesus Christ. The various degrees of holiness
attained by the individual members of Christ's Church are
the measure of the faith of each in the Divine Life which
flows from Him. The share in this Life possessed by each
individual will be found to range from the most exalted
saintliness to the very verge of the absolute extinction of
all sense of fellowship with Christ. We have, therefore,
no right to decide who are, and who are not, in actual union
with Him. Jesus Christ has not given to His disciples,
even in extreme cases, the right to say who have, and who
have not, altogether lost their faith in the sanctifying
influences He dispenses, though He has given us power,
under certain circumstances, to separate individuals from
the outward fellowship of the Church. In all ordinary cases He
has taught us to consider the whole family of the baptized as
living under His favour and partaking of His Life. Even the
weakest and worst of that family is thus regarded by Him, save
where the last spark of faith in a Divine Presence is utterly
extinct.1 This condition of provisional acceptance during pro-
bation is called in the Scriptures Justification by Faith. In
other words, Jesus Christ regards all His members, by virtue
of their faith in Him, not in the light they have deserved
to be regarded by their sinful nature and by their sinful

1 That there is such a thing as rejection is clear enough from such
passages as Matt. xii. 31, 32 ; xviii. 17 ; xxiii. 32, 33 ; xxiv. 51 ; xxv.
1-13, 30, 41-46 ; 1 Cor. vi. 10 ; Gal. v. 21 ; Rev. xxi. 8 ; xxii. 15 ; and
many others. And that such rejection may be here, and not hereafter,
may be inferred from Matt, xviii. 17; Eph. v. 5. Our contention is,
not that the Christian Church has no power to expel from her visible
communion those whose lives are a disgrace to it, nor yet that God
will not finally sever the obstinately impenitent from His flock, but
that it is not for us, under any circumstances whatever, to take upon
ourselves to assert that " the day of grace is past and gone" for any
individual soul.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 175

conduct, but in the light of that perfection to which faith
in His Divine power tends to hring them — the lighb of
that sanctified Humanity which His Spirit has imparted
to them. Before they can possibly advance a single step
in the direction of that perfection, the " handwriting which
is against them " must be blotted out. They must be con
vinced that they have a right to the "blessedness of those
whose unrighteousness is forgiven and whose sin is covered."
It were hopeless for them to attempt to break off the
dominion of sin while weighed down by the burden of
inexpiable offences. The only condition under which it
would be possible for them to undertake such a struggle
would be the assurance, in some shape or other, of Divine
grace or favour; the well-grounded hope that their sins, which
justly deserve punishment, are, or will be, pardoned.1 We
will not at present discuss the relation of Justification to
Sanctification, nor yet the full meaning of the former term,
as used in Scripture. We will only assert, with Godet,
that there is a preliminary Justification granted to all
members of the Christian Church, which looks upon them,
not as they are, but in the light of ivhat they may be hoped
eventually to become. They are regarded already as partakers,
according to their measure, of the perfect righteousness of
Christ. And they are at once exhorted and encouraged to
unite themselves, by that faith which God has given and
is willing to continue to give, more fully to that righteous
ness, until they are no longer merely hypothetically, or
initially, partakers of it, but are actually identified with it
in heart and will.2

This conception of Justification by faith delivers us from
many difficulties in which post-Reformation theology has

1 Acts xiii. 38, 39.

2 GODET, in his Etudes Bibliques, deals ably, and, on the whole,
satisfactorily, with this question, on lines not dissimilar to those
indicated above.

176 THE CREED.

involved us. When Justification was regarded simply as
a forensic process, consisting in the acquittal of a guilty
person by reason of the willingness of an innocent person
to take his place and bear his punishment; when it was
regarded as a transference of the merits of the innocent
party to the guilty, and of the offence of the guilty to the
innocent, it was not unnatural that the objection should be
made that such an "arrangement" or "transaction," as it
has been called, was repugnant to our sense of justice, and
that men should refuse to accept a system which represented
God as unable to forgive man without resorting to a device
so transparent that every fair-minded man would instinctively
reject it.1 It must be obvious to a careful student of the
Bible that no such theory has been laid down in Holy
Writ. On the contrary, the theory is the result of a double
misconception of the language of Scripture. First of all,
the scheme of salvation has come, in the ages subsequent to
the Reformation, to be regarded as an acceptance of pardon
rather than as an infusion of Life ; and next, the very

1 Mr. COTTER MORISON, in his Service of Man, pp. 35-38, assails
the "moral iniquity and obliquity" of the doctrine rejected above.
Dr. Martineau denies that any such thing is to be found as a "proper
transfer or exchange, either of the qualities or of the consequences,
of vice and virtue." Studies of Christianity, p. 94. And he adds,
" what deplorable reflection of human artifice is this, that Heaven
is too veracious to abandon its menace against transgressors, yet
is content to visit it on goodness the most perfect!" Ibid., p. 97.
That holy and clear-sighted divine, Archdeacon NORRIS, in his
Rudiments of Theology (p. 48), stigmatizes " the notion of a trans
action between the justice and mercy of God" as "artificial, and
dangerously apt to pass into the notion of a transaction between the
Father and the Son, leading almost inevitably into Arianism," and the
popular idea of imputation as "artificial," and as " finding no response
in a healthy conscience." It was "unknown," he further declares,
"to the Church until the sixteenth century." And he cites Bishop
BULL'S Seventh Sermon as warning us that this doctrine, "as it hath
been too commonly taught and understood, hath been a fruitful
mother of many pernicious and dangerous errors in divinity."

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 177

compressed language in which St. Paul deals with the
question of Justification has been misapprehended. It is
evident, from Rom. vi. throughout, that the Justification
of which he speaks is dependent upon the possession by
the believer of a Life derived from Jesus Christ, and it is
to his possession of such a Life, and not to any supposed
transference of merits and demerits to which he has become
a party, that his claim to Justification must be ascribed. It
is further evident that this Life justifies, not absolutely,
but because of its tendency to produce holiness, or, as we
may put it, likeness to Christ (Rom. vi. 5).1 This view
derives further support from the fact that St. Paul con
stantly speaks of life in Christ, where the Authorised
Version unfortunately speaks of life through Christ. Thus
God may be regarded as justifying us, or accounting us
righteous, not because our sins are arbitrarily imputed to
Christ and His merits to us, but because God sees Christ
in us, with all the potentialities which are involved in His
life-giving Presence within us. He sees the faith which we
have in that Divine power, the hope we entertain that it
will be effectual to transform us into the Divine Imago
which we have lost ; and He accepts us in His Beloved
Son, not for what we are, but for what it may reasonably be
hoped we may become. Thus He accounts us righteous,2 not
for any inherent righteousness of our own, but for a right
eousness imparted to us from another, which becomes
increasingly our possession through the power of faith.
In other words, the source of our Justification is the

1 A careful and unprejudiced study of such passages as Rom. viii.
1-4, Gal. ii. 15, 20, and even Rom. v., will tend to confirm the state
ments made in the text. Thus, e.g., in Rom. v. 19 the many are
said to be "made," not "accounted," righteous. It may be necessary
to add that the student should consult the original, or the Revised
Translation.

2 The translation " imputes " is avoided because of its associations.

178 THE CEEED.

Kighteousness of Christ, in which we already have a
share, and which, if we fall not away, will, in the end,
produce in us an absolute assimilation to the Image of our
Divine Master.1

From this point of view Justification, so far from involving
principles which seem to conflict with our human views of
morality, is in entire accordance with the ordinary rules by
which human society is governed. The relations of the
Eternal Father to us, His imperfect and erring children, are
similar to those between parent and child, master and servant,
teacher and pupil. A complete fulfilment of the duties
owing from an inferior to a superior would be impossible.
All that can be expected, all that in point of fact ever is
expected in such cases, is the desire and intention to fulfil
them. Where that is evidently present, the service rendered,
however imperfect, is accepted by those to whom it is
owing, unless they are unjust and unreasonable. The will
is taken for the deed, and the honest expression of regret
for duties unfulfilled or imperfectly performed, is held by
all fair and reasonable persons to atone for neglect or failure.
The relations of God to us, His reconciled children, do not
differ from those which have just been mentioned, save in
the perfection of His tenderness and love. He graciously

1 It is not denied that the doctrine of a transference of merits
and demerits derives support from Holy Scripture. There is a
truth in it, but it is not the whole truth : and half truths, as we all
know, are very near akin to falsehoods. That there is in a sense
a transference of merits and demerits in the work of salvation, may
fairly be admitted. But (1) if our sins were "laid on" Christ, and
His merits are regarded as ours, such transference is not arbitrary;
for (2) it is connected with the presence of the Divine Humanity of
Christ in the soul ; and (3) it is dependent upon the transforming
power of that Presence, which tends to produce the righteousness which
the believer is regarded as possessing by virtue of his spiritual union
with his Lord. For what is meant by our sins being "laid on" the
Saviour, see next section.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 179

overlooks all our imperfections, provided our will, on the
whole, is steadfastly set towards obedience. An open
confession of fault, coupled with an earnest purpose of
amendment, is as much more beautiful in the eyes of God
than it is in the eyes of the best of human beings, as He
is wiser, more perfect, and more merciful than they. Thus,
not only when we are admitted into the number of His
disciples, but all through our earthly probation or education,
we are regarded as other than we actually are. "VVe are
" accounted righteous," not for our own merits, but for the
Presence of the Spirit of the Eternal Son in our hearts,
breathing into us the perfected humanity of Jesus Christ.
And this Justification — this taking of our will for our
deed — is called Justification by Faith, because only by our
belief and trust in that Divine Presence can we take one
single step towards the fulfilment of the Divine Will, and
thus have a claim on the loving indulgence of our heavenly
Father.

In this connection we have further to consider what is
meant by the Predestination and Election of which St. Paul,
alone of all the sacred writers, speaks. Predestination and
election to ivhat? If we read into these words, as is
frequently done, the sense that each individual soul is
chosen from all eternity, by an arbitrary decree, to enjoy
the happiness of heaven, or to be condemned to the never-
ending torments of hell, the conclusion of the Calvinistic
school follows as a matter of course. But suppose the
words have no such meaning. Suppose they only refer to
the privileges and hopes which are common to every
member of the Christian Church. Then it follows that
the Apostle's words regard the gift of Eternal Life in
Christ, and the countless blessings which flow from that
gift to all believers, as operative only on condition that they
should hold fast the privileges which have thus been granted

180 THE CREED.

them. The members of Christ's Church are predestinated
and elected to a share in certain precious and exceeding
great promises, that through these we should be partakers
of the Divine Nature, having escaped from " the corruption
that is in the world by lust";1 but this share in those
promises is not absolute, but conditional, and a failure to
observe the conditions will entail the loss of the privileges
placed within our reach.2

The Incarnation of Christ, then, is the source from which
all the blessings and privileges of the Christian covenant
proceed. From this mystic union between God and the
human spirit flow the most incalculable consequences for
the future of our common humanity. The Incarnation and
its results are in the fullest harmony with all that is best
and truest in modern philosophy. It is the last step in the
onward course of Evolution, which commenced with the
Creation of heaven and earth, and ended in God uniting
Himself in close and indissoluble union with the noblest
of His creatures here below. And it opens out the most
glorious prospects possible for humanity in an illimitable
future, as the dominion of Christ in the human heart
grows ever more complete. The Incarnation is at once the
guarantee and the motive power of human progress — that
progress which is an undeniable fact in human history. A
mistaken exegesis of Scripture has, no doubt, tended in the
past to foster the supposition that Christianity and progress

1 2 Peter i. 4. That blessings given may be lost, is clearly proved
by such passages as Matt. xii. 43, 44 ; 1 Cor. ix. 27 ; Eph. v. 11-13 ;
1 Thess. v. 19 ; Heb. vi. 6 ; x. 26, 27 ; 2 Peter i. 10 ; ii. 20, 21 ; iii. 17.

2 Even in the visible world there is a species of predestination.
The law of heredity conditions the life of human beings, as do also
the position and circumstances of our parents. Some are predestinated
to fame and fortune, to prosperity and cultured ease, others to
poverty, pain, and misery. And yet it is possible for each of us
to modify his destiny, to forfeit the privileges, or overcome the
disadvantages, which God's will had assigned to us.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 181

were opposed. But we are beginning to understand that
instead of there being any opposition between the two, the
one, in reality, is the necessary condition of the other. If
we are to have true Progress and Enlightenment, it is from
the union of Christ with our spirits that they must spring.
ISTor is there any sphere of human activity of which the
Incarnation fails to take account. Through it Christ has
sanctified the body, the soul, and the spirit of the indi
vidual — his most natural desires, his intellect, his affections,
his aspirations. And as it connects itself with every
thought, word, and act of the individual, so is it inseparable
from the advance of man in his corporate capacity. It
promotes the growth and spread of empires, the order and
good government of communities, the development of com
merce, the discharge of the reciprocal duties and relations of
man. It sanctifies family life, the keystone of the social arch j
it directs and inspires the intellect, it refines and elevates
the taste, it matures and chastens the judgment, it gives
a dignity and a worth to the humblest form of labour.
For the Word made Flesh deigned for many years to
occupy the position of a lowly handicraftsman, in order
to make it clear to us that whatever occupation makes
us useful to our brother man has in it a Divine character
and aim. So vast and far-reaching are the issues involved
in this great doctrine.1 It is in eternal conflict with that

1 ' ' For as humanity is broken up into fragments by sex, by race,
by time, by circumstance . . . countless nations have not yet ex
hausted the manifold capacities of manhood and womanhood under
the varied disciplines and inspirations of life. . . . But in Christ
there are no broken or imperfect lights. In Him everything which
is shown to us of right and good and lovely in the history of the
whole world is gathered up once for all. Nothing limits His
humanity but the limits proper to humanity itself. Whatever
there is in man of strength, of justice, of wisdom : whatever there
is in woman of sensibility, of purity, of insight, is in Christ, without
the conditions which hinder among us the development of contrasted

182 THE CREED.

malignant heresy which has done so much mischief, and
which, even yet, has not been finally dislodged from the
human mind, nor even from the Christian Church itself,
that what is material is essentially evil. It vindicates and
expands, and enables us to translate into action, the truth
contained in those noble words which close the first epoch
of the world's history, as narrated by the Spirit of God,
"And God saw everything that He had made, and behold,
it was very good."1

SECTION II.
"AND WAS CRUCIFIED ALSO FOR us UNDER PONTIUS PILATE.

The next step in Christian teaching brings us into contact
with the fact of sin, and of the Divine mode of dealing
with it.2 The question of the Fall of man has been much

virtues in one person. . . . Christ, I repeat, was, and is, perfectly
man : He was, and is, also, representatively man. Seeing that He
unites in Himself all that is truly manly and truly womanly, un
disguised by the accidental forms which belong to some one country
or to some one period, everyone can, therefore, find in Him for his
own work union with the eternal. He is, in the language of St. Paul,
'the last Adam,' 'a life-giving spirit.' For Him, consciously or
unconsciously, all men were looking; to Him all history tended; in
Him a higher life had its beginning and its pledge." Bishop
WESTCOTT, The Historic Faith, pp. 62-65. Prebendary SADLER'S
well-known work, The Second Adam and the New Birth, should be
studied in connection with the subject treated in this chapter.

1 Gen. i. 31.

2 For the evidence for the Crucifixion, the reader is once more
referred to Bishop Harvey Goodwin's treatise. The following words,
however, may well be quoted. " As a mere historical fact it may be
said that it [the fact of the Crucifixion] was scarcely worth inserting.

. . . If Jesus Christ had been such as some of His critics, while
denying His highest claims, candidly admit that He was, namely, a
teacher of original and undeniable power, who collected disciples

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 183

discussed, and of late a school of thought has arisen which
attempts to hold up the doctrine of a Fall to reprobation.
But the question really lies in a nutshell. That sin exists
is an undeniable proposition. That it consists in the
contravention by man of the laws of his being — a contra
vention rendered possible by the freedom of the will with
which God has endowed him. — is another proposition which
can hardly be disputed.1 But as man must have existed
antecedently to the commission of his first offence against
those laws, it follows of necessity that when he committed
that offence he must have fallen from the state of innocence
in which he had previously existed. There is no need to
erect elaborate theological systems on the foundation of
the simple words of Genesis iii. Stripped of the historical
dress in which the story of the first sin has come down to
us in the books of Moses, the fact of the Fall seems to have
consisted in man's having resolved to have experience both
of good and evil. No other interpretation can rationally
be placed on the figurative language of the Scripture
account itself, which represents man as "eating of the
fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil."2 The

about him and formed a school, it would have been as painful as it
would have been unnecessary for those disciples never to speak of
their Master without referring to the fact that he suffered the death
of a malefactor or a slave." (p. 145.) And after pointing out how,
from the very first, the disciples of Christ have gloried in this their
Master's shame, he adds that this fact, as well as their reverence for
the Cross itself, points to the conclusion that the Crucifixion of Christ
was really the evidence of the powrer of Divine truth His disciples
believed it to be. "Can anything," he asks (p. 146), "short of the
power of Divine truth be suggested as at all adequate, or .yen likely,
to make the Cross triumphant ? "

1 i) a/j,apTia £GTI dvo/u'a. 1 John iii. 4.

2 It is scarcely possible to estimate the mischief which has been
done by the unscriptural and ridiculous statement — which has been
widely substituted, even by Christian teachers, for the careful and
suggestive language of Holy Writ — that this fruit was an apple I

184 tHE CREED.

moment when man resolved to know evil as well as good,
was the moment when the Fall of man took place. And
from that moment the struggle commenced between good
and evil, which is destined to last until the final consumma
tion of all things.

A confusion of thought appears to have arisen here in
many minds between innocence and perfection. Yet no
careful thinker would confound the two. An infant is
innocent, but it is not perfect. And man, when placed
upon the earth, though very probably physically perfect,
was morally an infant. By an infant, it may be necessary
to point out, we do not mean a savage. The conception of
a savage implies degradation. That of an infant only
implies inexperience. Man had no experience of the facts
of life, or of the results of transgression. Nor had he one
spark of that higher experience which comes from resisting
temptation. Consequently the portraiture of Adam in
Milton's Paradise Lost, which has imparted so much of
its colouring to modern theology, is not only untrue to
fact, but impossible in itself. If man's appearance on the
earth were due to an act of creation, he would naturally
be in the position of ignorance which I have described;
while if his physical characteristics be a result of evolu
tion, his moral characteristics, involving the freedom of
the will, were certainly distinct from those of any
being hitherto created, On either supposition, Milton's
idea of man as a being not only innocent, but perfect,
cannot be entertained. It is singular that the schoolmen
generally, believing that the soul was created by God,
regarded original sin, not as corrupting the springs of moral
and spiritual life in us, but as depriving the soul of some
special and peculiar grace superadded to man in his original
state of innocence. They appear to have derived this purely
arbitrary view from Augustine, who held that evil was

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 185

nothing more nor less than the depriving us of what is
good (privatio boni).1 This merely negative view of moral
evil seems hardly defensible. It would seem necessarily to
involve the conclusion, which the schoolmen themselves
would have been the first angrily to repudiate, that the
devil, who is represented in Scripture as the very imper
sonation and source of the principle of evil, must, for that
very reason, be supposed to have no existence. Moral evil
must surely involve an attitude of active resistance to
the Will of God. It cannot be explained as a mere
negation of something else. Thus the doctrines of the
schoolmen do not fit in particularly well with the language
of Scripture, which regards evil as an active principle,
and its existence in us not simply as withdrawing certain
excellences from us, but as tending to expel the Image of
God from the soul.

With regard to the transmission of sin from Adam to his
descendants, the primitive doctrine of the Christian Church
has been very greatly exaggerated in later times. The
Vulgate mistranslation in quo (in whom) of !<£' u> (because)
in Romans v. 12, has been the cause of a vast deal of this
exaggeration. It has led Western theologians to represent
St. Paul's doctrine as embracing the proposition that all
humanity sinned, and were condemned to death in Adam ;
whereas what he actually said was that death was the
common lot of all, because all had sinned. Still, there is
some support for this idea of transmission in other parts
of Scripture. " In Adam all die," says St. Paul in 1 Cor.
xv. 22. Nor is this the only passage in God's Word which
represents all mankind as involved in the consequences
entailed by the sin of their first progenitor.2 The question

1 Enchir. ad Laurent., chap. xi.

2 See Job xiv. 4. Ps. li. 5. Rom. vii. 18 ; viii. 5, 8. Eph. ii. 3 j
iv. 22.

186 THE CREED.

was much discussed at one period of the Church's history,
whether Creationism or Traducianism were the true theory
of the origin of the human soul — that is to say, whether
the soul of each infant came fresh from God by an act of
creation, or whether, like the body, it was evolved in some
way from the soul of the parents. This is a question
that cannot be authoritatively settled; but modem science
inclines to the latter conclusion. It contends that moral,
as well as physical, habits are transmitted from parent
to child j and it seems reasonable to infer from this that
the soul of the child is derived by some process, the
nature of which it is, of course, impossible to explain,
from the souls of those who have gone before it. It is
obvious that if life itself can be thus transmitted and
derived, there can be no reason why the characteristics of
the living being should not also be thus transmitted and
derived.

On this point, however, as has already been said, no
certainty is possible. The utmost we are entitled to assert
is that not only is science not opposed to the doctrine of
original sin, but that, so far as its discoveries have at
present led us, establishing, as they clearly do, the law
of transmission of hereditary characteristics — heredity, as
it is called — they strongly tend to support it.1 Given an

1 Mr. KIDD, in his Social Evolution, thinks that the more recent
school of Evolutionists, represented by Professor Weissman, has to a
certain extent exploded the doctrine of heredity, and has substituted
for it the doctrines of reversion to type and selection as the only
means of escaping from this tendency. From this point of view, sin
would simply be the tendency to revert to man's original condition,
and the Christian scheme of salvation a process of selection. The
Christian Church does not need to enter into the question. Either
view may be reconciled with her system. But that some law of
heredity exists will be denied by none ; and if heredity in any
sense be admitted, the transmission of sin from parent to child
becomes more than a possibility. It becomes the most natural
and reasonable solution of a practical problem.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 187

original lapse from the path of righteousness — a fact which,
as we have seen, it is impossible on rational grounds to
deny — and the transmission by the fallen parents to their
offspring of the evil tendencies involved in such fall, would
seem almost to be a scientific necessity. And the more we
insist on the doctrine of evolution, the more probable the
fall becomes. Given a being inheriting animal character
istics, and for the first time endowed with a capacity for
transgressing, and this necessity becomes more strongly
marked than ever.1 But it is not necessary to insist so
strongly as some theologians have been inclined to do on
the theory of hereditary transmission.2 Almost the same
practical consequences would flow from the fact of the
introduction of sin into the world as from its transmission
from parent to child. Sin, as we have seen, is the violation
of law ; but it is impossible to estimate the consequences of
one such violation. If it were possible, for instance, for
one single member of our solar system to stray one single
inch from its orbit, it is impossible to say what ultimate
consequences might result to every other member of that
system ; and the consequences to the living beings inhabit
ing that system would be incalculably more tremendous
still. We may therefore expect to find two schools of
theology among us, the one insisting more upon the trans
mission of sin, the other upon the increasing derangement of
the moral order likely to be produced by it, unless counter
acted by some remedial agency. Is there any reason why
they should mutually endeavour to exclude one another
from the Christian Church? — why they should not con
tinue to exist side by side 1

1 See BONNEY, Old Truths in Modern Lights, pp. 65-73.

2 For an account of the history of doctrine on this point, see
MULLER, Christian Doctrine of Sin, II., chap. iii. ; HAGENBACH,
History of Doctrines, I. 404-432; II. 239-260; III. 71-88.

188 THE CREED.

Both these theories agree at least in this, that the first
sin, whatever its mode of working in the human race, must
of necessity produce a widespread moral desolation; and
such, as a matter of fact, we find to have been the case.
It is almost impossible for us, after eighteen centuries —
during which the remedial agency has been actively at
work — to conceive of the distress, torture, agony, furious
yet futile rage, and terrible moral degradation, which sin
has actually produced We may gain some idea of it
at present by studying, not superficially, but carefully,
the condition of the countries to which Christianity has
not as yet penetrated.1 Or those endowed with a vivid
imagination might, perhaps, be able to picture to themselves
the cruelty, crime, and tyranny, the desolation and despair,

1 Travellers of a Gallio-like turn have enlarged on the virtues of the
"gentle Hindoo," the "honest Turk," the "industrious Chinaman,"
&c. , &c. ; and have deprecated all attempts to convert them to Chris
tianity as tending only to turn a respectable heathen into a hypocrite
and an impostor. Without attempting to deny that many ignorant
heathens may have been tempted to embrace the religion of a more
civilized and, in some cases, a dominant race, for selfish reasons, two
facts invariably emerge from a careful investigation of the circum
stances ; first, that the social condition of Hindostan, of Turkey, of
China, even of Japan, is infinitely below that of the least advanced of
Christian nations, in spite of the fact that the first of these regions 13
under Christian rule ; and next, that the life of communities of
converted Christians in those countries stands at a far higher level
than it does among their heathen neighbours. It is only the super
ficial observer who thus exalts the virtues of heathenism at the
expense of Christianity. Those who have studied the problem, even
when they are themselves sceptics, are forced to come to an opposite
conclusion. See an article in the Times on India, early in 1895, in
which some facts mentioned by the Rev. J. Lazarus in the Christian
Patriot are referred to on this head. No one denies that heathens
have their virtues, and heathen religions their merits, or that
Christians often lead very unchristian lives ; but that heathenism, on
the whole, produces a higher type of life and conduct than Chris
tianity as a whole, is a paradox which few would be found hardy
enough to defend.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 189

which have followed in the train of a great conqueror,1 or the
bitter or sullen, yet helpless, indignation which has seethed
among peoples subjected to an alien and unfriendly yoke.
Sin cannot be denied to be a tremendous and awful fact in
the world's history; and it is a fact with which He Who
created the world, and maintains it in being, cannot possibly
fail to deal. A religion, therefore, which professes to explain
the ways of God to man, must of necessity take note of so
serious a blot on the fair face of creation. The existence
of evil has been the one problem which, above all others,
has perplexed, and continues to perplex, the heart and
conscience of man. All religions have endeavoured to
deal with it, and, even including Christianity, have more
or less failed thoroughly to elucidate the mystery. The
fact of sin, as we saw in a former chapter, continues to
conflict, in the imaginations of many, with the Christian
idea of the goodness of God.

One reason why Christian theology has, to some extent,
failed in grappling with this great question, may be because
theologians have confined themselves too strictly to God's
Word written with paper and ink, and have taken too little
heed of His Word written equally plainly in the history
of man. The progress of inductive science has enabled
us to take a wider view of the causes and consequences
of sin ; and some of the more obvious difficulties connected
with it will disappear if we regard evil as a step in the
development of man's higher nature. Without freedom of
will, man is not to be distinguished from the lower animals.
He is little more than a mere machine. Without the power
of choice between good and evil, none of the higher moral

1 The great Duke of Wellington, of all conquerors perhaps the
most generous and humane, when replying to the congratulations
of his friends, is said to have replied that he knew of only one thing
more terrible than a victory, and that was a defeat

190 THE CREED.

attributes are within his reach. There is no room for
nobleness, for moral excellence, in any form, save in a
world of suffering and sin.1 But given the possibility
of transgression, and sin at once becomes practically in
evitable ; for if transgression can be committed, it is quite
certain that it will be committed by some one or other of
those to whom its commission is possible. But if this
be so, He Who made man must be prepared to deal
with what is a practically certain result of his moral
constitution.2

We have, therefore, to inquire how He is represented
in the Christian scheme as having dealt with it; and the
answer is plain. He "put away sin by the sacrifice of
Himself."3 But in what way was this sacrifice necessary,
and in what did its efficacy consist ? Various answers have
been given to these questions. The early Church was not
prepared with a rationale of the doctrine of sacrifice, save
that Origen throws out a suggestion as one of his obiter
dicta, which some of his disciples embraced as a theory;
namely, that man was held captive by the devil, and that
Christ gave His life to ransom man from the devil's

1 See this idea more fully worked out in BUTLER'S Analogy, Part I.,
chap. v. 4.

2 Accordingly we find St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. John all asserting,
with one consent, that God had provided a remedy before the world,
and all things in it, had come into existence. See Eph. i. 4, iii. 11 ;
2 Tim. i. 9 ; Titus i. 2 ; 1 Peter i. 20 ; Rev. xiii. 8. See Bishop
HARVEY GOODWIN, Foundations of the Creed, p. 310, notet and the
remark he quotes from Professor MASON'S Faith of the Gospel on the
exclamation 0 felix culpa! "With the conception," says Bishop
Goodwin, "of an eternal Divine purpose, as connected with Christ,
many difficulties vanish." And thus he regards the Incarnation and
its results as an ever-present fact to the Mind of God. This view will
be further elucidated when we come to Section iv. of this chapter, and
Section ii. of Chapter vii.

3 Heb. ix. 26. See also Rom. iii. 25 ; Heb. vii. 27, x. 4-10 ;
1 Peter ii. 24, iii. 18 ; 1 John ii. 2, iv. 10, &o,

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 191

power.1 The great majority of the early Fathers, however,
accepted the sacrifice of Christ as a fact, but did not venture
upon any explanation of it.2 In the twelfth century, however,
Anselm, in his Cur Deus Homo, essayed to give an answer to
the question, Why was Christ's death necessary for the
pardon of sin? His reply was, that some reparation on
man's part was required by the dignity of the Great Kuler
of the Universe, which had been outraged by the fact
of man's transgression; that Christ became man in order
to make such reparation; and that only a being Divine
as well as human could make adequate amends for so
appalling an insult as that offered by sin to the Divine
Majesty.3 This theory held the field until the Reforma
tion.4 Then the reaction from the doctrine of human merit,
so strongly insisted upon in mediaeval theology, as well
as some change in the conception of the position and duties
of a ruler, led to a modification of Anselm's theory.5 It

1 Origen, however, was not the first to suggest this explanation.
It is irst put forth by IRENAEUS (Against Heresies, V., i.). He says
' ' that God does not use force, but persuasion, in the work of redemp
tion." Archdeacon N orris points out that Irenaeus afterwards explains
this language. And perhaps he means no more than that as our fall
was the result of a process, so our restoration must also be, not an
arbitrary act, but the result of a process. Origen must not be con
sidered as having committed himself to the view associated with his
name, as has been represented by many — Redepenning and Hagen-
bach, for example. In his sixth Homily on St. John he distinctly
asserts that the explanation of Christ's sacrifice is not simple, but
complex ; and that some of the explanations are obvious, while
others are very far from being so. Gregory of Nazianzus, however,
though a great admirer of Origen, rejects with indignation the
supposition of a price paid to the devil.

2 I have treated this question more fully in my Hulsean Lectures
on The Atonement.

3 See Lectures on the Atonement, p. 49.

4 Abelard opposed it, but his theory did not explain the facts ; it
only explained them away. Ibid., p. 50.

5 Anselm dwells rather upon the dignity of the Ruler ; Reformation
theology rather on the duty incumbent upon Him to punish sin.

192 THE CREED.

was now taught that sin, as involving a certain degree of
guilt, had incurred a corresponding amount of punishment.
Such punishment was far beyond the power of man to
undergo, so as to satisfy the requirements of the Judge.
It was necessary, therefore, that another should be found
to undergo it, since the Kuler of the World could not
possibly permit sin to pass without the infliction of an
adequate penalty. It was further taught that sin, being
an offence against an Infinite Being, could only be avenged
by an infinite punishment. Moreover, an infinite punish
ment could only be undergone by a finite being for an
infinite time, or by an Infinite Being for a finite time.
Thus it was further necessary that God Himself should
become man, and Himself satisfy the requirements of His
own Law by undergoing the punishment which was due.
And thus the infinite merits of God the Son satisfied
God's requirements of a perfect obedience, as His Infinite
Sufferings as our Substitute satisfied the demands of God's
Justice. These infinite merits having been transferred to
the believer in consequence of his faith, and his guilt having
been transferred to the Divine Substitute, a " full, perfect,
and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction " was thereby
made "for the sins of the whole world," and those who
accepted it were, by faith, united to Christ, and became thus
partakers of all the blessed results to the spirit of man which
we have already described as flowing from the Incarnation.
It must be confessed that the language of Holy Scripture
lends some support to this elaborate, though artificial, theory
of Satisfaction. The language of Isaiah liii., which speaks
of the "iniquities of us all" having been "laid on" the
Redeemer, of His having been " stricken for our transgres
sions," and of our having been " healed by His stripes," when
coupled with St. Peter's direct application of these words to
Jesus Christ, certainly seems to indicate a certain transfer-

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 193

ence of innocence and guilt. And the language of St. Paul,
which speaks of Christ's Righteousness as having been
"imputed" or "reckoned" to us, may seem to many to
point in the same direction. But it is obvious that the
explanation given above goes far beyond the letter of Scrip
ture. We have already seen that a certain transference
of merits and demerits may be regarded as not unreasonable
when it is npt regarded as final, but only provisional, and
when the life of Him Whose merits are transferred is
actually transmitted to the person to whom it is supposed
to be transferred.1 But the supposed "legal fiction," or
"transaction," or "arrangement," just mentioned, regarded
as an arbitrary one, has been a source of great difficulty to
many minds, even in itself. And it has proved still more
perplexing when combined with the idea that a substitute,
by bearing the punishment due to our sins, has entirely
removed the whole punishment of those sins from us,
Men have failed to understand how God's justice can
possibly be vindicated by punishing the innocent and
allowing the guilty to go free, and their difficulties have
not been altogether removed by the explanation that in
punishing the innocent the Righteous Judge was punish
ing Himself, and that if He, the Avenger of all evil,
thought fit Himself to undergo the penalty inflicted on
sinners, no one could possibly deny that He had the
right to do so. The difficulties suggested by this
theory of Propitiation have been still further augmented
by the fact that its acceptance has been represented
by those who have received it as the one and only
condition of salvation. This erection of a proposition
extremely perplexing and disputable in itself, and not
directly affirmed in the Creeds or by any of the sacred

1 See pp. 177, 178.
0

194 THE CREED.

writers, into a necessary condition of salvation, has driven
many into downright unbelief, and many more into
Unitarianism.1 Moreover, it has often been pushed by
popular preachers to such an extreme that men have been
practically taught to believe in two Gods — one all wrath and
justice, and demanding the fullest satisfaction for trans
gression; the other all love and mercy, ready to take all
transgressions on His Own shoulders and to excuse the
sinner from making any satisfaction of any kind whatever.
It is remarkable that Irenaeus, fifteen centuries and more
before any such theory was devised, made a decided protest
against it.2

The doctrine that Christ was our Substitute, and that
by dying on the Cross He removed from our shoulders all
the punishment of sin which we had deserved by bearing

1 It is interesting to study the rebellion against Puritan theology
on this point, in consequence of the difficulties it presented to thought
ful minds, in the works of Alexander Knox, Erskine of Linlathen,
Edward Irving (who denounces the doctrine as "the bargain and
barter hypothesis"), and Dr. McLeod Campbell. The Bishop of
Durham expresses himself thus on the subject (Victory of the Cross,
pp. 78, 79) : "No support remains for the idea that Christ offered, in
His sufferings, sufferings equivalent in amount to the sufferings due
from the race of men, or from the elect ; no support for the idea
that He suffered as a substitute for each man, or for each believer,
discharging individually the penal consequences of their actions ; no
support for the idea that we have to take account for a legal
transaction, according to which a penalty once inflicted cannot be
required again. The infinite value of Christ's work can no longer be
supposed to depend upon His capacity for infinite suffering, or upon the
infinite value of each suffering of One Who never ceased to be God."

2 Against Heresies, III. xxv. 2. "Moreover, they take away the
prerogatives of rebuke and judgment from God, thinking them
unworthy of Him, and supposing that they have found a God good,
and incapable of anger, they have declared that they have found
one God Who judges, and another Who saves."

3 Some of the opponents of the Substitution theory have done
this, e.g., Abelard, Schleieraiacher, and Unitarian writers generally.
See Lectures on the Atonement, pp. 50, 58, 130, 135, 136.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 195

it Himself, has not only been a source of difficulty to many,
has not only led a large number of people to reject the
Christian religion altogether, but it rests on assumptions
which are themselves extremely disputable. To one we
have already alluded. It rests not on the actual language
of Scripture, but on more or less doubtful inferences from
that language.

Next, it may not unfairly be contended that an explanation
of the language of Scripture which was never heard of till
the sixteenth century, and is disbelieved by a vast majority of
Christians at the present moment, can hardly, whether
reasonable or unreasonable in itself, be represented as a
fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith, " which except
a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved." Further, the
principle on which this theory largely depends, that sin,
being an offence against an infinite Being, must necessarily
deserve an infinite punishment, is a pure assumption, and
has apparently been adopted, not as an explanation of the
statements in the Scriptures, but in order to explain the
position assigned to the Incarnation of the Eternal Word in
the work of redemption. It is obviously equally open to
us to contend that sin, being committed by a finite being,
can therefore deserve only a finite punishment.1 Again, it

1 JACKSON, in his Lectures on the Creed, unlike Pearson, free from
the influence of Grotius, says on this point (On the Divine Essence
and Attributes, VIII. ii. ch. 13, 3) : "The satisfaction made for us by
the Son of God was more truly infinite than the sins of mankind were.
For it was absolutely infinite, non quia passus est infinita, sed qma qui
passus est erat infinities. I omit the weakness of such calculatory
arguments as this, 'Our sins were absolutely infinite, as committed
against an Infinite Majesty,' as too well known to most students, and
often enough, if not too often, deciphered in other of my meditations.
For, this being admitted, all sins should be equal, because all are
committed against the same majesty and goodness. " It is unfortunate
that Jackson's works are so voluminous, not to say tedious, for he is

196 THE CREED,

will be seen that the Substitution theory makes Satisfaction
for man's guilt, and not his restoration and perfection, the
main object of Christ's coming; and represents such
restoration and perfection, when taken into consideration
at all, as the consequence, not directly of the Incarna
tion of Christ, but of the Propitiation made by Him.
His Incarnation, it would appear, was only necessary, from
this point of view, in order to make the Sacrifice for
human guilt a sufficient one. This, as has been already
shown,1 is not the Scripture view of the Incarnation.
Moreover, the statement that the Substitute bears all the
punishment of our sins in our stead is not the fact.
Sorrow, shame, sickness, death, are the penalties of sin.
They are, most certainly, not removed by belief in the
Sacrifice of Christ.2 On the contrary, we are called upon
to suffer with Christ; and such sufferings, from the Apostles'
days onward, have been the direct consequence of faith.3

often strikingly original and suggestive. Thus, he says of our Lord's
cry, "Eli, Eli," on the Cross, that it was spoken in the name of sinful
humanity; and, in reference to the Agony in the Garden, he more
than once says that Christ, as the God-Man, suffered pains such as He
only suffered or could suffer. He also remarks that the Agony was
caused by "the question of the natural man, Why should I so
sacrifice myself ? " and that we must not forget that He Who so
offered Himself " had power to lay down His life, and power to take
it again."

1 See p. 193.

2 So says Archdeacon NORRIS (Rudiments of Theology, p. 48):
"The theory that Christ bore the penalty of sin, and thereby saved
us from bearing it, leads to a dilemma which, if not fatal to it, is
difficult to answer. For what was sin's penalty ? If temporal death,
then, as a matter of fact, we are not saved from it ; if eternal death,
then, assuredly, Christ did not bear it." The same thing is said,
quite independently, in my Lectures on the Atonement (pp. 66-68).

3 Matt. x. 16-31. John xv. 18-20. Rom. viii. 17-23. 1 Cor. iv.
9-13. 2 Cor. iv. 8-18 ; vi. 4 ; xi. 22-33. Phil. i. 29 ; iii. 10. Col. i.
24. 2 Tim. ii. 12. Heb. xii. 1-11. 1 Peter iv. 13 ; v. 10.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 197

Next, we may observe that the endeavour to reduce the
mysteries of Christianity to the level of a simple propo
sition, intelligible to the meanest understanding, has been
the source of innumerable errors and controversies.1 The
Roman Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation, and the
Protestant doctrine of the Atonement, are two typical
instances of the danger of trying to bring Divine truths
down to our level. Both these explanations — and this is
their principal attraction — are easily grasped, and are there
fore readily accepted by all who do not accustom themselves
to reason. But to thoughtful minds they suggest many
formidable difficulties. The doctrine of Propitiation, in
truth, cannot possibly be reduced to one or two single
propositions, because it touches man on all sides of his
complex being and history. A simple rationale of it is,
therefore, out of the question. At most we can but offer
attempts at explanation — attempts which fall very far short
of the whole truth. Our last objection is that the substitu
tion of the idea of propitiation for that of restoration and
perfection as the main object of Christ's coming, which
has just been mentioned as unwarranted by Scripture,
has been a grave injury to practical Christianity. The
direct result of the theology which makes it the sole, or
even the main, object of Christ's coming to obtain for us
forgiveness of our sins, has tended very seriously to lower
the standard of Christian practice. It has appealed to the
selfish instinct which Christ came to uproot. The chief aim
of the Christian on this view is simply to obtain something

1 " How, or in what particular way, Christ's death was efficacious,
there are not wanting persons who have endeavoured to explain ; but
I do not find that Scripture has explained it." Bishop BUTLER,
Analogy, Part II. chap. v.

198 THE CREED.

for himself, not to give something to God. He wishes to get
his sins forgiven, not to bring his will into harmony with
the Will of God. And the further this idea is carried, the
worse for Christian ethics. In order to exalt the freeness
of Divine forgiveness, it has been thought necessary, among
theologians of a certain school, to depress, as much as
possible, the importance of human works. In such quarters
those works, instead of being looked upon as the necessary
results of the union with God brought about by faith, have
sometimes been represented rather as a hindrance than a
help in the way of salvation, salvation itself being supposed
to consist in the felt assurance of pardon, not in victory
over sin. How completely this idea of pardon, as the be-all
and end-all of salvation, has seized hold of the popular
mind, is clear from the answer almost universally given at
the present time to the question, What did Christ do for
you? That answer is, " He died for us" ; as though He did
nothing else. And the inference which is often insensibly
drawn is that if at any time of our lives we believe ourselves
to have received the assurance of the pardon which Christ
died on the Cross to win, our final salvation is at once
secured.1 The temptation, on this view, to excuse oneself
the life of continual effort after holiness to which the
Christian is bound by his relation to Christ, is to many
irresistible; and the low standard of Christian conduct to
which this leads has been a scandal to the Christian Church,
as well as a sore difficulty to many minds.2

1 SIMEON, in his Skeletons far Sermons (Matt, xxvii. 26-31), declares
that so fully has Christ discharged our debt, that " neither law nor
justice could demand any thing further at our hands," although God still
punishes His elect, and still demands from them obedience and holiness.

2 Professor MILLIGAN, cited aboye, p. 145. He elsewhere remarks
on the injury done to Christianity by the discovery, when the Glasgow
bank scandals came to light, that some of the persons involved in them
were elders of the Presbyterian Churches in high repute for their piety.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 199

The true answer to the question, What did Christ do
for you? will include the benefits we receive from His
Life, as well as His Death. "He died for us, and now
lives in ws," would be a more accurate answer. He came,
not only that we might have pardon, but that we might
have life.1 The reconciliation He once made for us by the
offer of His pure life to God on the Cross, in the place of
our sin-stained lives, He carries out in us by His Spirit,
Who gradually weans us from our sins, and transforms us
into the likeness of the " Beloved Son," in Whom God ever
was, and is, "well pleased." Moreover, it is important to
remark that in their presentation of the doctrine of the
Mediation of Christ, divines have for many centuries
entirely forgotten the doctrine of the Divine indwelling
in man's soul through the instrumentality of the Spirit of
God. They have represented that Mediation as taking place
between two separate beings; whereas, according to Scrip
ture teaching, not only has He in Him the life of both,
but He actually, though God, is united to man. This
inhabitation, it has been shown above,2 is a most remark
able feature of the teaching of the Fourth Gospel and of
all the Epistles, if we except that to the Hebrews. Any
statement of the doctrine of Mediation, therefore, which
leaves this most material fact out of sight, must be
condemned as entirely inadequate.

We will endeavour, therefore, to suggest an explanation
of Scripture language concerning propitiation which will
steer clear of the serious difficulties, theoretical and
practical, with which the theory of substitution is beset.

1 John v. 40; x. 10; xx. 31. Rom. vi. 23. 1 John v. 11, 12. These
passages, however, have been evacuated of all their force in the
popular mind by confounding the words "eternal" and "ever
lasting," and by looking on life eternal as exclusively a, future, and
not in any sense a presenl gift.

2 Pp. 167, 168.

200 THE CREED.

Our first task must be to inquire into the true nature of
redemption — the figure under which the rescue of man
from the power of sin is continually described in Scrip
ture.1 A price, we are told, has been paid for the
deliverance of man from the yoke of sin;2 and that
price is Christ's Blood.3 And here comes in the first
assumption of the theory of redemption by substitution.
Certain theories which were current in the sixteenth
century, concerning the functions of punishment in human
society, materially affected the conceptions of redemption
which were then formed. It was supposed that the claims
of justice were satisfied by the endurance of a proportionate
penalty. Accordingly, the sufferings and death of Christ
as the penalty apportioned to human sin were supposed
to have been the price paid for human transgression, the
penalty due for human guilt. But it will be seen at once
that this view of the satisfaction of the claims of justice

See Rom. iii. 24 ; 1 Cor. i. 30 ; Eph. i. 7, 14 ;
Col. i. 14 ; Heb. xi. 35. Also Matt. xx. 28 ; Mark x. 45 ; Luke xxiv.
21 ; Titus ii. 14 ; 1 Peter i. 18. Archdeacon NORRIS, in his Rudi
ments of Theology (p. 168), attributes the errors into which theology
fell, in regard to the doctrine of redemption, to the Vulgate translation
of Xurp6w, dTToXi/rpwo-ts. This can hardly be, since they originated
with Irenaeus and Origen ; but he is undoubtedly right when he
says that the mistake consisted in supposing that the price must be
paid "to him from whom the captive is delivered." He further
points out that when the words \trpov avrl Tro\\wv are cited, in order
to prove substitution, it is forgotten that our Lord orders Peter
to pay the temple tax dvrl (on behalf of, not instead of) tyo\>
Kal <rov. And he further observes that the Hebrew term TED con
tains no idea of substitution. See also my Lectures on the Atond-
ment, p. 30.

2 1 Cor. vi. 20, vii. 23 ; 2 Peter ii. 1.

8 Acts xx. 28 ; Rom. iii. 25 ; Eph. i. 7 ; Col. i. 14 ; Heb. ix. 12 ;
1 Peter i. 19 ; Rev. v. 9. The passages which speak of the cleansing,
purging, life-giving properties of the Blood of Christ, are often cited
in support of the statement above; but, in truth, they relate to
another aspect of the efficacy of Christ's Blood.

THE REDEMPTIVE! WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 201

rests on a pure assumption.1 No one in these clays will
be inclined to grant that the claims of justice are satisfied
with the infliction of punishment. Moreover, the careful
reader of Scripture will observe that Scripture never once
says that the sufferings and death of Christ were the price
paid for our redemption. The invariable phrase used in
reference to the price paid is Christ's "Blood."2 It is a
further assumption to represent that the phrase "Christ's
Blood" is equivalent to His death.3 This is not the fact.
The "Blood," we are told in Scripture, "is the life"
* an(i tne natural inference from Scripture lan-

1 "Divines then" [in the days of Anselm and of Grotius] "held
that God was an angry God, the avenger of blood in hot pursuit
of His victim, whose wrath could only be slaked and diverted from
man by the satisfaction of His Son's death. Abraham, stretching
forth his hand to slay his son, was long considered as the true symbol
of the Eternal Father exhausting His infinite anger against sin by
the infinite merit and worth of the voluntary substitution of His own
Son. In this sense the Incarnation was represented as giving worth
to the Atonement ; and, indeed, divines up to and including Anselm,
in his Cur Deus Homo, taught that the purpose of the Incarnation
was to lead to the Atonement. The end is always of more importance
than the means : hence, with perfect consistency, all theology after
Anselm laid stress on the purpose of the Incarnation only as giving
dignity and worth to the Atonement." HEARD, Old and New TJie-
ology, pp. 161, 162. Two observations are suggested by these words.
First, instead of "up to Anselm," Mr. Heard would have been nearer
the truth if he had said "from Anselm onwards." And next, the
word Atonement, as used in Scripture, needs more careful limitation
than it usually receives.

2 There is an exception in Gal. iii. 13. There Christ is represented
as redeeming us by bearing the curse of sin ; i.e., a shameful death.
This, however, He does for us, but not necessarily in our stead.

3 Many other like assumptions are made, as, for instance, when
John iii. 16 is interpreted exclusively of Christ's death.

4 It is to be observed that the word here is ^vx^> not £wij ; that is
to say, the blood is the principle of our natural life here below—our
animal life, as we call it, anima being the Latin equivalent of ^vx^.
And it is further worthy of remark, that though Jesus Christ is

202 THE CREED.

guage is, therefore, not that Christ's death, but His
natural human life, is the price paid for the redemption
of the world.1 His death was no doubt the mode in
which His life was offered ; and from this point of view,
once more, the offering of that life, and not the endurance
of a certain amount of suffering, culminating in death,
would seem, according to Scripture, .to be the price paid
for the sins of the world. As a matter of fact, obedience,
not the endurance of a penalty, is the debt man owes to
God.2 The pure and blameless life of Christ was, from
that point of view, the fulfilment of what was owing;
and thus His death presents itself to us, not as the thing
offered, but simply as the means whereby the offering was
made.

This view is supported by the fact, already mentioned,
that no one in these days imagines the satisfaction of the
claims of justice to consist in the punishment of the
offender. Punishment, as now inflicted by our laws, may
either be remedial or deterrent, or both; but it is never
simply vindictive. The only satisfaction an offender can
make to the outraged majesty of law is repentance and
amendment. Thus a theological system which depends
entirely on the purely vindictive theory of punishment is
instinctively felt by most minds in our age to rest on an
entirely false basis, and must inevitably be, in the end,

frequently spoken of in the N.T. as giving us £<aj (e.g. John iii. 15 ;
v. 40 ; vi. 33 ; x. 10, 28 ; xx. 31 ; Rom. ii. 7 ; vi. 23 ; viii. 1-12, &c.),
He is never said to give His ftnj, or Divine life, for us, but only His
V'i'Xi?, or the natural life-principle. See Matt. xx. 28 ; Mark x. 45 ;
John x. 11, 15, 17 ; xv. 13 ; 1 John iii. 16. Cf. John xiii. 37. See, in
reference to this point, Note viii. in Bishop WESTCOTT'S Historic, Faith.

1 Irenaeus (Against Heresies, V. 1) says that Christ gave His soul
tyvxij) for our souls, His Flesh for our flesh.

2 Non mors, sed voluntas placuit sponte morientis ; "not death,
but the Will of Him Who died of His own accord." ST. BERNARD.
Tractatus de Erroribus Abelardae, chap. viii. 2.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 203

rejected by a society which has rejected the principle on
which it is founded. But from this point of view, where,
it may be asked, is the necessity that Christ should die at
all ? Why should the offering of Christ's pure and perfect
life have been made through His death ? Why should He
not, like Enoch, have been translated to heaven as soon
as His task of obedience here below was fulfilled? That
necessity, it may be replied, is to be found in the fact that
Christ came, not to save Himself, but to save all mankind ;
and that His obedience could in no way save us, unless it
were obedience from a true Representative of sinners. Death,
we are told repeatedly in Scripture, is the penalty of sin.1
Jesus Christ, as the Representative of sinners, readily and
joyfully submits Himself to the operation of so wise, so
salutary, so necessary a law.2 For a wise, necessary, and
salutary law it is. Unless sin be destroyed, the world
cannot be saved. If sin continue to exist, man must
continue to be miserable; and so He Who would save
mankind from sin must duly express man's concurrence
in this first principle of God's dealings with mankind — the
necessity of extirpating sin. The wisdom and justice of
the law of God as it affects sinners must be recognized on
man's part, or sin would not be " condemned in the flesh."
The first step, therefore, in the redemption of mankind
from sin, must be a complete obedience to the law which
condemns sin. And so Jesus Christ, as our Representa
tive, testifies before the whole universe that sorrow,
agony, shame, despair — nay, even death itself — are the
due and fitting penalty for sin. Thus "He is in all
things tempted as we are, yet without sin."3 And this
obedience of a sinless One to the law under which sinners

1 Rom. v. 12, 17 ; vi. 23. 1 Cor. xv. 22.

2 " Lo ! I have come : in the roll of the book it is written of Me,
I delight to do Thy Will, 0 God." Ps. xl, 7, 8. Cf. John v. 30.

3 Heb. iv. 15.

204 THE CREED.

lie condemned — offered on our behalf, and initially, no doubt,
instead of ours — is the price paid for the redemption of
the world.

Obedience, then, to the perfect law of God as it is pro
claimed against sinners, is one of the necessary conditions
of the re-establishment of the union between God and the
soul, which sin had destroyed.1 Objection, however, has
been taken to the language which represents God as being
alienated from man by sin. But the doctrine of God's
alienation from man on account of his sin so permeates the
Old Testament that we must either deny all Divine authority
to its teaching regarding sin, or admit that such alienation
is possible. Nor is the language of the New Testament at
all inconsistent with this doctrine.2 Neither is it abhorrent
either to morality or common sense. A certain amount of
temporary alienation is by no means inconsistent with a very
real and deep love. A loving and wise parent, for instance,
may, and often does, nourish a deep displeasure against an
erring child, so long as that child persists in doing wrong.
But that displeasure passes away the very moment the child
shows signs of real penitence. God's alienation from the
sinner, then, is not final or complete. He is alienated just
so far as, and no further than, the sinner identifies himself
in will with his sin. The alienation is, in fact, owing to
the very yearning God is represented as having towards the

1 Rom. v. 19. Phil. ii. 8. Heb. ii. 9 ; v. 8 ; x. 7-10. Of. John
iv. 34 ; v. 30, 36 ; vi. 38 ; ix. 4 ; xvii. 4 ; xix. 30.

8 It is involved in such passages as John iii. 86 ; Rom. i. 18 ;
Eph. v. 6 ; Col. iii. 6 ; Rev. xxi. 27, xxii. 15, and especially in
Rev. vi. 16, 17, and xiv. 10. All the passages which relate to a
future judgment imply the same truth. One reason why we read so
little about it in the New Testament is because it is taken for granted,
and the task of the New Testament is not so much to point out the
fact, as the remedy.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 205

offender ; His " Will that all men should be saved and come
to the knowledge of the truth."1 It is difficult for many
«ninds to conceive it as a possibility that sin can be
committed without altering the mutual relations of God
and man; that God's attitude towards man can be entirely
and absolutely unchanged by the fact of sin. But if God
be estranged from man, and man from God, a reconciliation,
an At-one-ment (KaraAAa-yrj), is necessary.2 This is provided
in Jesus Christ. In Him God and man are united. He is
the Mercy-seat (lAcumj/nov) where man's sacrifice and God's
Presence meet.3 It is from this point of view that the
Death of Christ is regarded as a Propitiatory Sacrifice for
the sins of the whole world. For the offer of Christ's
Human Life in death is not the necessary consequence of
His own personal relations, as Man, with the Father. Were
those only to be considered, such an offering of Himself would
have been perfectly unnecessary. It is, once more, because
He has put Himself in our place ; because He stands before
God as the Representative of sinners ; because it is necessary

* 1 Tim. ii. 4.

2 Kara\\ayri means originally change of money. It comes to mean
reconciliation, or At-one-ment, with the idea of change of mutual
relations.

3 Rom. iii. 25. Of. Heb. ii. 17 ; 1 John ii. 2, iv. 10. We must not
consider Christ's mediatorial work as that of one who intervenes
between two parties, being himself distinct from either. It is just
the reverse. He mediates between God and man because He Himself
is at once God and man. See WESTCOTT, Historic Faith, p. 202.
Also MILLIGAN, On the Resurrection, p. 71, sqq. The victim's blood
was sprinkled on the Mercy-seat (Hebrew, capporeth, i.e. covering-
place), on which the Shechinah, or sign of the Divine glory, rested.
(See Exodus xxv. 17-22, xxvi. 34, xl. 20 ; Lev. xvi. 13, 14 ; Num.
vii. 89.) The ritual of the Day of At-one-ment, or Reconciliation,
most wondrously typifies the meeting of the Divine glory and the
Life of the Sacrificed Victim in the Sacrifice of the Cross. A
remarkable note on this Sprinkling of the Blood on the Mercy-seat
will be found in MILLIGAN, On the Resurrection, p. 274, sqq.

206 THE CREED.

that He, as Man, should concur to the uttermost with God's
sentence against sin, as being the one only thing which can
separate man from God, the one only thing which cuts
man off from the source of Life, and thus condemns him
irremediably to death, unless some remedy can be found —
it is this which explains why He gave His Human Life for
us on the Cross, and thus became the Ransom for the sins
of the whole world. It is thus, to use Dr. McLeod
Campbell's phrase, that He deals with man on behalf of
God, and God on behalf of man. On God's part He marks
adequately the guilt of sin. He shows that it cannot be
lightly passed over by a simple act of amnesty. It is
necessary that its destructive and deadly nature should
be fully perceived and acknowledged. As man's Repre
sentative, on the other hand, He fully accepts this necessity.
By offering Himself to die, He expresses man's entire
concurrence with the Divine sentence on sin. He offers,
on man's part, a full acknowledgment of human guilt — an
adequate expression of repentance for the evil wrought by
man. Nay, if the explanation of William Law be accepted,
He puts to death, destroys, blots out for ever, the "body
of sin " which He had taken of the Virgin,1 and rises again
to unite His pure human soul and spirit to a glorified Body
worthy to be the tabernacle of such a pure and perfect
Humanity as His.2 And His Sacrifice is Infinite, because it
involves the submission of every possible deed, word, and
thought, to the Will of the Eternal Father. From this point
of view it is the sacrifice of will on the part of the Repre-

1 Not that He had committed sin in that body, but that it was "a
body of sin," corrupted, degraded, dishonoured by sin. He took it
that He might destroy it and create it afresh.

2 So ATHANASIUS, in his Treatise on the Incarnation, appears to
think, for he says (chap, xiii.) that our Lord assumed a mortal body,
in order that death might cease to be (t£a<f>avi<rdi)vai). For the
voluntary character of the Redeemer's sufferings, see a most striking
passage in Bishop WESTCOTT'S Victory of the Cross, pp. 64, 65,

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 207

sentative of mankind, His submission to the sentence of God
which had been pronounced against the race, rather than
the endurance of the penal consequences of sin, which
constitutes the "sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfac
tion for the sins of the whole world," ever recognized
by the Church as involved in the Death of Jesus
Christ. Thus the Mind of God and the mind of man
are from henceforth one in regard to the fact of sin. And
by reason of the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ in us,
that Mind of the Crucified Saviour is imparted to us.
The At-one-ment wrought out for us on the Cross is
henceforth to be wrought out in us by the re-establishment
of holiness in us; by the subjection of our sinful desires
to the law of God. The struggle against sin begins from
the moment when we consciously accept the fact of our
new relation to Him through and in Jesus Christ. We
are accepted in God's sight from the moment when we do
this, in consideration, not of any merits of our own, but of
the end to which our efforts are directed. But the
At-one-ment is not finally wrought out in us until our
victory over sin is complete, until every thought has been
brought into subjection "to the obedience of Christ."1

Many earnest persons in our time have, however, fled to
the theory of substitution as an escape from the bondage
of legalism. Recognizing the impossibility of satisfying
God's requirements by their works, they have taken refuge
in the thought that an Atonement has been made for sin,
and that those who live in the light of this fact will be
filled with the Eternal Life which comes from Christ, and
will do His Will as a matter of course. The truth, as
usual, lies between the two extremes. We cannot satisfy
God's requirements by any efforts of our own; we cannot
merit heaven by our own works ; we cannot do away with
1 2 Cor. x. 5.

208 THE CREED.

the need of forgiveness. But, on the other hand, we
cannot be certain that the Atonement in which we
believe was a satisfaction to God's Wrath or Justice by
the endurance of a punishment equivalent to the sins of
the whole world. Neither must we imagine that a
simple recognition of the fact that "a full, perfect, and
sufficient Sacrifice, Oblation, and Satisfaction was made
by Christ for the sins of the whole world," will free us
from the necessity of a struggle with sin. " He that hath
this hope" in Jesus Christ, says St. John, "purifieth him
self, even as He is pure."1 He "works out his salvation
with fear and trembling,"2 because he believes in God
working with him and in him. He knows that only "he
that overcometh"3 can enjoy the perpetual Presence of his
Lord." And this because he believes, not only in an
Atonement made, but in a Life given; and if he yield
himself by faith to the influence of that life, he will be
cleansed "from all defilement of flesh and spirit,"4 and
translated, in the end, from "the bondage of corruption
into the glorious liberty of the children of God."5

We are thus brought back to the question of Justification
by Faith, upon which we have already entered.6 It has
already been explained to mean an acceptance of us by
God, in consideration of the Presence of His Son in us
by His Spirit, and of the general bent of our minds — the
attitude assumed by us — in consequence. We have now
to consider this Justification in its reference to the fact
of sin. We have sinned. There can be no question of
that. Then how can God treat us as though we had not
sinned? In other words, how can He be "just," and yet
the "justifier"7 of those who have offended against Him?

1 1 John iii. 3. 2 Phil. ii. 12.

3 1 John v. 4. Rev. ii. 7, 11, 17, 26 ; iii. 5, 12, 21. 4 2 Cor. vii. 1.

6 Rom. viii. 21. 6 See pp. 175-180. 7 Rom. iii. 26.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 209

It is easy enough to find fault with the answers theology
has given to this question. But it is a question that
naturally suggests itself to all who are burdened by the
consciousness of sin. Some answer must be given to it,
if we are to satisfy the anxious inquiries of souls agonized
by the sense of guilt. But the simpler the answer, the
better. The truth is that the two ideas are reconciled in
the very idea of Divine Forgiveness.

We stand condemned in God's sight. That is a con
clusion from which there is no escape. How can God
reasonably and consistently treat us as though we were not
so condemned 1 The answer is to be found in the truth
which the Scriptures teach, that God condescends to
overlook our sinful past, in consequence of a blessed
present, in which He sees the Perfect Purity of His
Beloved Son becoming inwrought, by the Divine Spirit,
into the very fibre and texture of our being.1 He regards
us with favour (x<*PL<>)) which He "freely bestows on us
in the Beloved One,"2 because of the process of assimilation
to the likeness of Christ which is going on in us. Even
now we may describe ourselves as "justified," because
God, for the present, takes our will for our deed; and as
"justified by faith," because by faith in Christ alone is
that pure and perfect determination of the will possible to

1 The rendering into English of the Greek often obscures the
teaching of the New Testament on this point. Thus in Rom. v. 9, 11,
the Greek tells us we are "justified in Christ's blood," "saved in
His Life." And without attempting to deny that iv has some
times an instrumental force, it always implies the power of an inner
working.

2 Eph. i. 6. It is worthy of note that here not even the Authorised
Version renders iv by.

210 THE CREED.

us. We are "justified by faith in Christ's blood," because
that Blood is His Life. And that Life was given for us
on the Cross, and to ws by the Spirit,1 that our wills may
be identical with His ; our attitude to sin the same as His ;
our sacrifice of self spiritually united with the one "Full,
Perfect, Sufficient Sacrifice, Oblation, and Satisfaction" for
the sins of the " whole world," offered once for all upon the
Cross.

When that end is once attained, even though we have
reached our final perfection, we still need the Divine
Forgiveness. The consciousness of sin in the past still
remains with us. But since the full Atonement2 to God
for sin has not only been made for us by the Life and
Death of Christ, and in us by the re-creation of our souls
and spirits in the image of that Life and that Death,
then, surely, it were no longer "just" in God to remember
the sins of the past, which have been for ever blotted out
and done away, through our complete union with God in
the Spirit of His Son.3

It is not pretended that the above is a complete, or even
an adequate, exposition of the modus operandi of Christ's
Sacrifice.4 All that is attempted is to place before the

1 It should be remarked that it was the human soul (^vxt) of our
Lord that was offered for us on the Cross ; it was the Divine far)
which was imparted to us by the Spirit when the perfected Manhood
was exalted to the Right Hand of God.

2 The word atonement had not the same sense in the seven
teenth century that it has now. We can only conceive of it as in
volving the idea of suffering on behalf of others. But Clarendon
uses it of the agreement come to between Charles I. and the Scots
in 1640.

8 Gal. iv. 6.

4 The Archbishop of ARMAGH, in his able and eloquent volume
of sermons, entitled Verbum Crucis, says (p. 30) that he "mislikes

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 211

reader a statement of the first principles involved in that
Sacrifice, which may, at least, be free from the serious
objections felt by many against the theory of redemption,
which, until quite lately, held the field among us. It
represents Christ as suffering and dying on our behalf,
yet not instead of us.1 It represents us as sharing in His
sacrifice, not as escaping from the necessity of doing so.
It justifies the bold language of an Apostle, who did not
scruple to speak of himself as " filling up in his body that
which was lacking in the sufferings of Christ."2 And if
there be any difficulty in the question of vicarious suffering,
we do not content ourselves with saying that it is the law
of the universe, and that it involves even less difficulty in
the case of Jesus Christ than in the case of mankind in
general.3 We go further. We say that it is impossible
that the work of sin can be undone in any other way

the expression 'philosophy of the Atonement.'" I may be allowed
to plead for it. It is the duty of mankind to endeavour, with
reverence and modesty, to penetrate, as far as they can, into Divine
mysteries ; and no nobler exercise of the intellect is possible. But
the Bishop's language contains a salutary caution against the con
ceit which pretends to have explained the inexplicable. If a
"philosophy of the Atonement" claims, at the present moment, to
be a full and complete exposition of all that is contained in
that sacred mystery, no words of condemnation can be too strong
for it.

1 That Christ suffers some things which we deserve to suffer, but
cannot suffer, need not be denied. It is impossible for us to have the
same keen sorrow for sin, the same clear apprehension of its true
character and terrible results, as He, the great Head of His Church,
has felt and expressed on our behalf.

2 Col. i. 24.

3 " I only know that it is but the chief instance of that law
of vicarious suffering, of deliverance at the cost of other*, which

212 THE CREED,

than by vicarious suffering. Sin is the gratification of
selfish desire, involving the breach of God's law. This
gratification of selfish desire, in most cases, is indulged at
the cost of His creatures. Sin can only be destroyed
when men are determined to keep God's law. But if the
breach of God's law involves pain to others, it is equally
true that, in a world where resistance to God's law is the
rule, men can only keep it at the cost of pain to them
selves. Righteousness and holiness can only be restored
to the world by resistance to evil desires, evil principles,
and evil men. Such resistance must involve suffering,
more or less acute, to those who are emboldened to offer
it. Nor is this all. This suffering must be vicarious.1

is at work in human society. . . . Only let this be said: It is
easier to defend the Atonement from injustice than instances of
the law of help through mediation in natural society. There the
sufferers are generally unwilling, but Christ was willing." Verlum
Cruets, p. 30. I have dealt with this subject more fully than
is possible here in my Lectures on the Atonement, pp. 43, 66-70,
88-90; and in the Preface to the Second Edition, p. 6. Bishop
WESTCOTT (Christus Consummator, pp. 119-123) points out that the
individualism of a great deal of our popular theology is responsible
for much of the misconstruction which has attached to the doctrine
of vicarious suffering. Grant the solidarity of mankind, and much
which has perplexed us is at once explained. Our natural " instinct
has always rejoiced in the stories of uucalculating devotion which
brighten the annals of every people." Jesus Christ simply does for
mankind what others have done for parent or child, or friend or
country.

1 "But, I may ask, is there anything in this rule exceptional,
abnormal, unprecedented ? The innocent suffer for the guilty ! How
can it be otherwise ? When do they not suffer ? Can a man squander
his property, whether through sin or through unwisdom, without
consequential injury to those who are dependent on him? Can he
ruin his health by vicious living, without giving cause to every child
born of his body to curse his father's sins ? Have you never heard of

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 213

The suffering righteous men voluntarily undergo is due
to the sacrifice of their desires for the benefit of others.
And the more perfect the righteousness and holiness of
him who offers this sacrifice, the more tremendous the
sacrifice must needs be. Thus the demand on God's part
for the sacrifice of a perfect human will, and for the
manifestation of that sacrifice in "strong crying arid
tears," in the patient endurance of suffering and even
agony, in submission even to death itself, is the result, not
of an arbitrary decree on the part of an irresponsible
autocrat, but of the necessary laws which a loving Father
has laid down for the government of mankind. And the
union of God and man, inaugurated when God the Son
vouchsafed to take our human flesh, is manifested, in all
its majestic completeness, on the Cross. The world can
only be redeemed by sacrifice — the sacrifice of self. God
sent His Son into the world to proclaim this necessary
truth.1 No other than that Son, become man, could
enforce this truth, as He has done, by acting on it.
By such action the unity of will, of purpose, between
God and man is most effectively proclaimed. And all
who are admitted into fellowship with Christ must
own that it is their duty to follow His example, and,

congenital diseases, of ancestral taints of blood, of hereditary phthisis,
scrofula, insanity, and the like ? Not a day passes but thousands
of children arc born into this world, doomed by parental vice to
a crippled existence, or to a premature grave." Old Truths in Modern
Lights, p. 78.

1 "So He showed that sacrifice, self-surrender, death, is the begin
ning and the course and the aim and the essential principle of the
higher life. To find life in our own way, to wish to save it, to seek
to gain it, to love it, is, He proclaims, to miss it altogether." Bp.
WESTCOTT, Victory of the Cross, p. 22, It would, perhaps, have
been more strictly accurate to have said " to love it for its own sake."
We are bound to love what He loves. See also Bp. WESTCOTT'S
Christus Consummator, pp. 25-27.

214 THE CREED.

consequently, to make the first object of their lives to be
the crucifixion of self.1

"We conclude this section by a brief i^view of the further
teaching of Scripture, in regard to the nature and effects
of the Sacrifice of Christ. It will be seen, it is hoped, not
to be inconsistent with the explanation just given. But
it will also be seen that this explanation by no means
exhausts the effects of Christ's Sacrifice. As has already
been said, those effects are most complex and varied in
their nature, and touch man at every point of his moral
and spiritual being.

1. Christ came to manifest God's enduring wrath against
sin. He " condemned sin in the flesh," we are told.2 The
very fact of such a condemnation is surely a proof that sin
alienates God from the sinner, as well as the sinner from
God. But when God and man alike condemned sin in the
Sacrifice of the Cross, when the Divinity and the humanity
united thus to proclaim the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the

1 It should be noted that the Lord's Sacrifice includes, and is
typified by, all the sacrifices of the law. It corresponds to the burnt-
offering, in that Christ, in His death, offered His whole human self,
consumed by the fire of love to God and man, to His Father. It
answers to the peace-offering, because Christ offered His heart and
mind, His inner self, to God ; and the offering is shared by such of
those on whose behalf it was offered as are united to Him by faith.
It answers to the sin-offering, because the life of the Victim was
pleaded before God, and the "body of sin" was consumed and cast
away without the camp. It answers to the sacrifice of the Day of
Atonement, because the High Priest carried the Blood of the Victim
into the Holy Place, and sprinkled it before the Mercy-seat, even the
Throne of God Himself. It answers to the Passover, because the
Blood of the Slain Lamb is our protection against the powers of
evil, while His Body becomes our food : and in the strength of that
"meat that we go even unto the mountain of our God." (1 Kings
xix. 8.) Both as an Atonement for sin, and as the means whereby
we forsake it, the One Perfect and Sufficient Sacrifice effects tha
reconciliation of man with God.

2 Rom. viii. 3.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JBSU8 CHRIST. 215

At-one-ment between God and man was made. In the
death of Christ there was manifested to the world the great
truth that sin must not only be punished, but utterly
destroyed. And henceforth there was no condemnation
for the sinner, when united to Christ by a living and
energizing faith.1

2. Christ came to justify mankind 81 Ivos StKaiw/taro?, by
one complete fulfilment of all God's requirements. (Rom.
v. 18.)2 If a St/caiw/xa, according to Aristotle (Ethics, v. 7),
be the setting an unrighteous action right, then Christ's life
and death are regarded by St. Paul as the means whereby
man's lost righteousness is re-established, and this re-estab
lishment carries with it his restoration to the favour of God.

3. The death of Christ was the death of humanity to sin.
If He died for all, " then all died," says St. Paul. (2 Cor.
v. 14.) He not only "tasted death for every man" (Heb.
ii. 9), and thus was perfected through suffering, but His
death, as man's representative, was potentially the death to
sin of the whole race.3 And each man individually dies to
sin in Christ, when united to Him by a living faith.

4. The death of Christ was a manifestation of the truth

1 See also Rom. i. 18 ; Eph. v. 6 ; Col. iii. 6 ; and the O.T. through
out. It may be observed that St. Paul seems to consider that God's
justice may appear to be impugned on account of His having passed
over "the sins that are past," at least until the proclamation of
His righteous indignation against sin by the Sacrifice of Christ.
(Rom. iii. 25.)

2 "So He carried to the uttermost the virtue of obeying. He
fulfilled in action the law which God had laid down for the Being
Whom He had made in His image. He endured, in His Passion,
every penalty which the righteousness of God had connected with
the sins which He made His own. He offered the absolute self-
surrender of service and of suffering, through life and through death ;
fulfilling, in spite of the Fall, the original destiny of man, and rising,
in His glorified humanity, to the throne of God." Bp. WESTCOTT
Victory of tlie Cross, p. 61.

3 See also Rom. vi. 2-6. Gal. ii. 20 ; v. 24 ; yi. 14,

216 THE CREED.

that God is love. Christ came to make the Father known
to us.1 And He makes Him known, not simply by His
righteous wrath against sin, but by His infinite tenderness,
compassion, love. He died for man. And as He Himself
has told us, "greater love hath no man than this, that he
lay down his life for his friends."2

5. By undergoing the lot of misery and suffering, in
cluding death itself, "for us men and for our salvation,"
Jesus Christ cleaves a path "through the veil, that is to
say, His Flesh,"3 through which we may walk in the way
of obedience. As He "has suffered, being tempted, He
is able to succour them that are tempted."4 He came to
save us, not from the penalty of sin — for from this, save
in its more extreme forms, He does not save us — but
to teach us how to bear the yoke which sin has laid on
mankind. By cheerfully submitting to the law of vicarious
suffering, as well as to the punishment which, for our
own sins, we have deserved; by electing to suffer for
others, as well as for ourselves, we become incorporate
in the Sacrifice of Christ; we crucify with Him those
selfish inclinations in which sin consists; we concur in,
and prosecute, by virtue of His Presence within us, His
work of the redemption and regeneration of the world.5

6. St. Paul represents our Lord's death as not only
removing the barrier which sin had placed between God and
man, but that which had divided man from his neighbour.6
At first sight this view seems to present some difficulty.
But a little consideration will show how the Cross tends to
unite mankind. Sin, as we have seen, is the indulgence
of our own will, in opposition to the Will of God, which
wills the good of all mankind. The Cross is the slaying
of all such sinful self-indulgence and self-assertion. It is

1 John i. 18. 2 John xv. 13. 3 Heb. x. 20.

4 Heb. ii. 18, 6 Pp. 211-213. » Eph. ii. 14.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OP JESUS CHRIST. 217

the manifestation of the One Divine Life which condemns all
sectional and selfish considerations whatsoever. Henceforth
man learns to seek the Will of God, the good of all man
kind, at whatever cost to himself. There can be no more
alienation, no more division among mankind, when this
principle is established. Yet without the Cross of Christ
it never could have been established. It is by the Cross
that we learn how the ideal of Christianity can be realized,
that henceforth "there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither
bond nor free, neither male nor female, for ye are all one
in Christ Jesus."1 " For He is our peace, Who hath made "
those who were alienated "one, having abolished in His
Flesh the enmity, that so He might create unto Himself
of the twain one new man, so making peace ; and might
reconcile them both in One Body unto God by the Cross,
having slain the enmity in it" (i.e. by submission to death
upon the Cross).2 The self-sufficient arrogance and mutual
contempt of Jew and Gentile alike have henceforth passed
away. All are henceforward brought under the same law —
not the law of mere legal, moral, or ceremonial enactments,
but the inward law of conscience, informed by the Divine
Example and the Divine Spirit, and leading us all to the
crucifixion of self. Thus the union of God and man,
initiated at the Incarnation, is consummated at the Cruci
fixion. The Divine and human wills, united at the In
carnation of Christ in aim and purpose, are practically

1 Gal. iii. 28.

2 Epli. ii. 14-16. Of. v. 12. The Apostle's pregnant mode of
expression makes "the law of commandments formulated in enact
ments" (d6y/j.a.<riv) the cause of the alienation. It is difficult to
express his meaning briefly. But it appears to rest on the fact that
to the Jews a law was given which the Gentiles had not, and that
this had produced a separation which had hardened into antagonism.
Some very useful information in regard to the subject of this chapter
will be found in Part II. of the late Archdeacon NOBRIS' Rudiments
of Theology, on the "Soteriology of the Bible."

218 THE CREED.

manifested in the world as one in regard to the fact of
sin. The ancient enmity between man and man, between
man and God, is slain by the death of Christ. By sacrifice,
and sacrifice alone, can union and peace with God and our
brother be restored to mankind. In fact, Christ's Sacrifice
atones or reconciles the whole world.

APPENDIX TO SECTION II. "HE DESCENDED INTO HELL."

This article forms nc part of the Nicene Creed. Neither
Irenaeus, Tertullian, nor Origen mention it in their short
summaries of the faith.1 Nor is it to be found in the ancient
forms of the Roman (or Apostles') Creed,2 nor in the Creed
appointed to be repeated by those about to be baptized in
the Apostolic Constitutions.3 It is first found in the so-called
" dated Creed," drawn up at Sirmium in A.D. 359, and presented
to the Arians at Ariminum in the same year.4 This Creed was
revised at Nice, in Thrace, and again at Constantinople in the
ensuing year.5 Cyprian mentions it, however.6 Eusebius also
gives it in the sketch of the Christian faith which he represents
Thaddaeus as having imparted to the Church of Edessa.v But
it may be regarded as a necessary inference from the articles
which mention Christ's death and burial. And this will appear
more clearly if we bear in mind a truth which has been some
what overlooked by many who have undertaken to treat this
sul.iject. Hell has been defined as "the place of departed
spirits." But the word hell, when applied to the condition of

1 IRENAETJS, Against Heresies, L 10. ORIGEN, On Principles,
Preface. TERTULLIAN, Against Praxeas, chap. ii. ; On the Veiling of
Virgins, chap. i. ; and On Prescription, as against Heretics, cliap. xiii.

2 See PEARSON'S note, On the Greed, p. 225. It is riot quite accurate,
as will be seen from what has just been said. Also SWETE, The
Apostles' Creed, v.

* Book VII. chap. xli. The Apostolic Constitutions are supposed
to have been gradually drawn up, and to hare hecn published about
the middle of the fourth century.

4 SOCRATES, Eccl. Hist. ii. 37.

6 SOCRATES, Eccl. Hist. ii. 37, 41. The Constantinople Creed,
mentioned in the text, states that " hell itself trembled " at our
Lord's descent.

6 In his Testimonies against the Jews, ii. 1. 7 Eccl. Hist. i. 13.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 219

the departed, cannot be a place, but must be a state. For the
idea of place involves the idea of matter. But the idea of
spirit excludes that of matter. Locality can only be predicated
of bodies. With spirit the idea of locality has nothing to do.1
From this point of view, the doctrine of the descent of Christ
into hell simply asserts the reality of His death. It affirms
that His human soul and spirit, after death, were in the same
condition as the souls and spirits of all other human beings.
Such an explanation at once reduces this apparently difficult
article of the Apostles' Creed into a necessary inference from
the articles which have preceded it. As in the case of other
men, so with Jesus Christ. His body was laid in the grave.
His soul and spirit remained apart from the body, in the same
way as those of other men were accustomed to do.2

We have next to inquire what that condition was ? And here
very little information is afforded us in Scripture. The Hebrews
spoke of the dead as in Sheol, the Greeks as in Hades. But it
is contended by some that, in many cases, and even in Psalm
xvi. 10, the Hebrew word Sheol means no more than the grave.3
And the Greek idea of Hades has nothing in common with that
of the Jewish and Christian Church. Little, however, as is said
in the Old Testament to define the signification of the word
Sheol, it does not always mean the grave. In a picturesque
passage in Isaiah4 Sheol is spoken of as the abode of departed
souls. And in later Jewish thought we find this idea fully
accepted,5 though but little is known of the state of the wicked
between death and the judgment.

One serious source of confusion of thought on this point
should, however, be mentioned before we go further. It is that

1 This consideration may help those who have found it impossible
to conceive of the ubiquity of the Evil Spirit, except by endowing
him with what has been supposed to be a special Divine attribute.

2 " It is well known what the word $di>)s signifies in Greek authors,
viz. the state of the dead." LIGHTFOOT, Hebrew and Talmudical
fixer citations, Acts ii. 27.

3 It properly means a hollow place, just as the English hell and the
German Ilolle.

4 Isa. xiv. 9-12.

5 See LIGHTFOOT'S Hebrew and Talmudical Exercitations on Luke
xvi. 22 ; xxiii. 43.

220 THE CREED.

two words, of different signification, have been combined in our
Authorised Version under the translation "hell." These words
are Hades and Gehenna — the first of which denotes the condi
tion of man's immaterial part, or parts, before the Judgment ;
the latter the condition of the soul after the Judgment, when, as
it is believed, it has been reunited to the body. The cause which
has led to so serious a liberty having been taken with Scripture
language, is probably to be found in the strong reaction at the
Reformation from the Roman doctrine of purgatory, and the
abuses connected therewith, which impelled the Reformed
theology towards the denial of the intermediate state. This
denial has led to many very disastrous consequences, and has
undoubtedly been among the causes which have enabled the
Roman Church to maintain her position as she has done during
the past three centuries. For the denial of the intermediate
state is not only opposed to Scripture, but is in flat contradiction
to Catholic antiquity. It is denounced beforehand by so early a
Father as Justin Martyr, who, writing about A.D. 150, says
that " those who believe the souls of the departed are taken
to heaven at the moment of death cannot be supposed to be
Christians any more than they can be supposed to be Jews." x

We shall discuss this question more fully in a subsequent
chapter. It is sufficient now to show that the Scriptures
themselves contradict the doctrine to which Justin Martyr
takes exception. In the parable of Dives and Lazarus, our
Lord speaks of the soul of the faithful Lazarus as passing to a
place 2 called Abraham's bosom, while that of Dives passes into
Hades, which, though a place of torment, is nowhere declared to
be that of final torment. Then He says to the penitent thief,
" To-day shalt them be with Me in Paradise." But our Lord, as
Man, did not ascend into heaven until the end of the forty days
after His Resurrection.3 The Last Judgment, moreover, is

1 Dialogue with Trypho, chap. Ixxx.

2 The word place is used here in reference to the language of the
parable. But it is obvious that this language is figurative.

3 It must be admitted, however, on this mysterious subject, that
St. Paul speaks of Paradise as equivalent to the Third Heaven, and
that he does not know whether he was transported there in the body
or out of the body. It is clear, however, that our Lord's Body did
not go to Paradise, but was buried.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST, 221

constantly spoken of as a future event. It were therefore
unreasonable that it should be anticipated by the transference to
heaven, or to the place of eternal punishment, of souls on whom
the final sentence has not yet been pronounced ; and still more
unintelligible is the doctrine that, after having enjoyed the bliss
of heaven for ages, the blessed will be summoned to the bar of
God's tribunal to hear their sentence pronounced. And if
man's body, as well as his soul, share in the ultimate bliss of the
redeemed, or the ultimate misery of the lost, the opinion in
question becomes yet more inadmissible. For the intermediate
state concerns the immaterial part of man ; the Catholic Church
teaches, as we shall see hereafter, a final condition of humanity,
in which body, as well as soul and spirit, shall have a share.

But the most important passage in regard to our Lord's
descent into hell, that is, His assumption of the condition of the
dead, is unquestionably 1 Peter iii. 18-20. This passage stands,
in the Revised Version, as follows : " Being put to death in the
flesh, but quickened in the spirit ; in which also He went and
preached unto the spirits in prison, which aforetime were
disobedient, when the long-suffering of God waited in the days
of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is,
eight souls were saved through water."1 Closely connected
with this passage is chap. iv. 6, of which the following is a
literal translation : " For unto this end was the good tidings
proclaimed also to dead persons (ve/c/>o?s, i.e., persons who had
died, not of course persons who had ceased to exist, which
would be absurd 2), that they might be judged indeed according
to man's judgment (/card avdptiirovs) in flesh, and yet might live

1 As the passage is such an important one, a still more literal
translation is appended. tl Being slain in flesh, but made alive in
spirit ; in which He went and preached also to the spirits in prison —
they who were once disobedient, when the long-suffering of God
waited in the days of Noah." The word "quickened" has lost its
original meaning for many English ears. And it is well to remember
that vapid and irvev^aTi have neither of them the article prefixed to
them in the now accepted text, and also that KO.I may be taken either
with rots TTveti/jLacrtv or Avith the participle. The former is preferable
because it implies that Christ preached both to the living on earth
and to the departed in Hades.

2 veKpdis may, of course, mean persons who had died since Noah's
time.

222 THE CREED.

according to God's manner of judging (KO.TCI, Qebv) in spirit." It
is not our intention to enter fully into the discussion of this
passage. Those who desire to examine it will find it fully
discussed in Commentaries,1 and in the works of Bishops
Pearson2 and Harold Browne. The more general opinion has
been that our Lord proclaimed to the souls in Hades, who
had long been waiting for the fulfilment of the promise of
deliverance which had been made to them of old, the fact that
this fulfilment was now accomplished, that sin's yoke had been
broken, that the obedience God required from man had now
been offered, and that henceforth God's wrath against sinners
had been propitiated, and His alienation from them brought to
an end.3 The chief difficulty in this interpretation lies in the
fact that this preaching seems to be limited to those who
offended in the days of Noah. But this difficulty is not
insurmountable. We must remember that all the writers of
the New Testament observe the utmost reticence on the
condition of the soul between death and the judgment.4 We
may therefore believe that it was not the purpose of St. Peter
to say more than was necessary on so mysterious a point, even if
more had been revealed to him than the fact of which he makes
mention. It is not unreasonable to suppose that St. Peter here
marks an era in God's dealings with mankind, at which, and
after which, those who had sinned grievously on earth, and had
been severely punished, were placed under guard, as it were ;
remained in a condition of discipline tempered by the expectation

1 Dean PLTJMPTRE has a useful note in his Commentary on 1 Peter
in the Cambridge Bible for Schools ; and the question is still more
fully discussed in his Spirits in Prison, as well as in his article on
" Eschatology," in Smith's Dictionary of Christian Biography.

2 Bishop Pearson lays stress on the fact that St. Augustine finds
considerable difficulty in the interpretation of the passage.

3 HERMAS, Shepherd, III. Sim. ix. chap, xvi., teaches that the
apostles and teachers who preached Christ on the earth preached Him
also afterwards in Hades. Clement of Alexandria cites this passage
twice with approval in his Miscellanies (ii. 9, vi. 6). Hilary of Poitiers
adopted this view. But Chrysostom in his Homily on St. Matthew,
chap, xi., rejects the doctrine as an " old wives' fable."

4 "He told it not, or something sealed
The lips of that Evangelist."

TENNYSON, In Memoriam, 31.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OP JESUS CHRIST. 223

of deliverance, until the time when Christ came to preach
good tidings of salvation to the living and to the dead. Thus
the doctrine of Christ's descent into Hades,1 if we have rightly
interpreted Scripture teaching on the point, involves three
important propositions ; first, that His Death was in all respects
like ours ; next, that the souls of the faithful are conscious
during the period between death and resurrection, otherwise it
were impossible to preach to them ; and last, that the condition
of departed souls varies according to the degree in which their
conduct here has fitted them to appreciate more or less fully
the nearer Presence of God in the life to come ; a Presence which
will fill them with joy, or penetrate them with shame or
terror, in precise proportion to the extent to which they have
previously prepared themselves to understand it.

SECTION III.
"AND THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN, ACCORDING TO THE

The fact of the Resurrection is of infinite consequence to
the believer in Christ. It is the keystone of the Gospel
arch, as the facts of the Incarnation of the Divine Word,
and the full and sufficient Sacrifice made by Him for sin,
may be regarded as its foundations. Upon this fact the
whole power of the redeemed life of the Christian has,
from the very first, been seen to depend. "If Christ be
not risen," says St. Paul, "our preaching is vain, and your
faith is also vain."2 The preaching of the twelve after the
day of Pentecost is usually described as being the preaching
of the Resurrection.3 And though the importance of the
Resurrection of Christ by no means consists, as has some-

1 The doctrine that Christ went to the place of final torment seems
to need no refutation.

2 1 Cor. xv. 14.

3 Acts i. 9.2 ; iv. 33 ; xvii. 18, 31. See also ii, 32 ; iii, 15, 26 ; iv. 10 ;

x, 41, &c.

224 THE CREED.

times been imagined, solely in the fact that it is the only
possible guarantee of the truth of His teaching, or of the
sufficiency of the Atonement made by Him, yet such a
guarantee, in the first instance, it undoubtedly is. In no
other way which we can imagine could He demonstrate the
extraordinary statements He made concerning Himself —
that He was the Only-begotten Son of God, come down
from heaven to redeem mankind from the curse of sin, and
commissioned to offer Himself to the Father as a perfect
and sufficient sacrifice and satisfaction for it.1 The fact
of the Resurrection is, therefore, all-important to the
Christian. The evidence for this fact, so unique in its
character,2 is, as we might antecedently have expected,
exceptionally strong. No doubt men have a right to
demand that an event of such a kind should be sub
stantiated by far stronger evidence than any ordinary
event. Happily for our Christian faith, there are few, if
any, events in history which rest upon testimony so decisive.
The four Gospels, written by disciples and contemporaries
of our Lord, not only declare that He was risen, but they
declare it with a copiousness and minuteness of detail which
preclude all possibility that they were under any halluci
nation. "'We did eat and drink with Him," says St. Peter,
"after He was risen from the dead."3 They touched Him,4
they held Him by the feet,5 they held long conversations
with Him, and this not once or twice, but repeatedly. They
established a society founded on the confession of this fact.
All suspicions of their good faith are precluded by the

1 Matt. xx. 28. John iii. 16, 18.

2 " It is the evidence of believers only ; and from the days of Celsus
downwards it has been urged that the Christian cause is weakened by
this fact.'' MILLIGAN, The Resurrection of our Lord, p. 32.

3 Acts x. 41. Cf. Luke xxiv. 30, 43. John xxi. 13,

4 John xx. 27.

8 Matt, xxviii. 9.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 225

blamelessness of their lives. Their sincerity is, moreover,
attested by their continual sufferings. The explanation of
the history which has recently been suggested, that Jesus
did not really die on the Cross, but was resuscitated by
the kindness and attention of friends, will not meet the
circumstances of the case. The appearances of Christ
after His Resurrection, as recorded in the Gospels and
Acts, are not those which might be expected in the case
of a man who, two days before, had been exposed to a
most cruel and barbarous punishment. If He had died
of His wounds a short time afterwards, as some have
pretended, the appearances described by the eye-witnesses
of them become yet more inexplicable. And if not, how
was it that He contrived afterwards entirely to disappear1?
It is, if possible, yet more incredible that He hid Himself
in order to give colour to the subsequent statement of the
apostles, that He had ascended into heaven. Repeated
judicial investigations, moreover, were held in regard to
the statements of the apostles ; and though, no doubt, only
an ex parte statement of the results of those investigations
has come down to us, yet it bears the stamp of honesty,
and there is not the slightest indication that the production
of any rebutting evidence was even attempted.1 Even if
the biographies of Christ and the account of the early
proceedings of the apostles be set aside as the statements
of interested witnesses, and as being, possibly, not the
compositions of the persons to whom they are attributed,
there remains a letter written within twenty-seven years of
the alleged event, in which the same evidence as that
contained in the Gospels is appealed to, and belief in the
fact declared to be the primary condition of membership
in the Christian Church.2 The genuineness of this letter

1 Acts iv. 5-23; v. 17-40; xxiii. 1-10; xxiv. 1-22; xxvi. See what
Bishop Harvey Goodwin has said of the veracity of St. Luke, p. 147.

2 1 Cor. xv. 12-18.

226 THE CREED.

no one has the hardihood to dispute. It is too obviously
what it professes to be — a letter written by the founder of
a Christian community at Corinth to his disciples; and it
not only witnesses to the fact of the Resurrection, but to
the existence of communities in various districts bordering
on the Mediterranean, founded on the belief on this fact,
and existing to commemorate it.1 And this unequivocal
testimony has since been reinforced by the undeniable
stream of blessing which has flowed from the Saviour's
open grave to fertilize the lands with the power of His
Risen Life. Whether such evidence is to be regarded as
sufficient to compel conviction is, of course, a matter which
each must decide for himself. But it is quite certain that
it is such as no rational man would dismiss as unworthy
of serious and careful examination.

To do more than summarize the evidence for this all-
important fact is incompatible with the scope of the present
volume.2 We must now turn to the deductions from it.
As has already been said, the Resurrection of Christ is far
more than a guarantee either of the truth of His teaching
or of the sufficiency of His Atonement. In the first place,
there is the closest and most intimate connection between
His Resurrection and our own. The nature of our resurrec
tion will be more fully treated when we reach the article

1 1 Cor. i. 2; iv. 17; vii. 17; xi. 16 ; xiv. 33; xvi. 1, 3, 8, 15, 19.
2 Cor. i. 1 ; viii. 1, 18, 19 ; ix. 2, 4 ; xi. 8, 28 ; xii. 13. The second
Epistle to the Corinthians is as incontrovertibly a genuine document
as the first.

2 Those who desire to study the evidence will find it clearly and
conclusively stated in GODET'S Conferences Apologetiques, \vhich have
been translated into English. I have entered somewhat more fully
into it than I have above, in my Essay Are Miracles Credible ? Dr.
Maclear has shown, in his Boyle lectures, that the continued celebra
tion of the Eucharist rests upon the fact of the Resurrection. And
so does the Christian observance of Sunday, with which Dr. Maclear
has also dealt.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 227

on the Resurrection of the Body. But the nature of our
Lord's Resurrection Body may properly be dealt with here.
At first sight it is perfectly clear that though the Body of
the Risen Lord was unquestionably a material Body, yet It
existed under conditions essentially different to that under
which our ordinary human bodies subsist. It was a material
Body, for, as we have already remarked, It was capable of
being seen and touched, and in It He ate and drank with
His disciples. It moreover bore on It the marks of His
Passion, and was therefore in some sense identical with
the Body which was crucified.1 But it unquestionably had
properties altogether new. It displays no sensitiveness to
weariness or pain. Food, though eaten, appears to have
been no longer a necessity to It. Shelter was no more
necessary to It than food. It was not always recognized
at once.2 It suddenly appeared when the apostles were
sitting with closed doors, and sometimes as suddenly
disappeared.3 It flashed through the air with amazing
rapidity, and the disciples who had lost sight of It at
Emmaus returned to find that the Master Who had so
mysteriously disappeared from them had already been at
Jerusalem, and had had an interview with the President
of the Apostolic College.4 The whole intercourse of the
Risen Saviour with His disciples after His Resurrection
is marked by a mysterious reserve.5 His Body, in fact,
was what St. Paul calls a spiritual body (crw/xa Tn/cv/zariKov).6
But a word of caution is necessary here. We must beware
of imagining that by a spiritual body is meant a body
composed of spirit. This is a simple impossibility. Body

1 Luke xxiv. 40 ; John xx. 27.

2 Luke xxiv. 16. John xx. 14 ; xxi. 4.

3 Luke xxiv. 31. 4 Luke xxiv. 34.

6 As when He forbade the Magdalene to touch Him (John xx. 17)
although at other times He permitted His disciples to do so.
6 1 Cor. xv. 44.

228 THE CREED.

and spirit are two different things, though obviously not
incapable of relation. Our Lord's Body was as distinctly
and demonstrably material after His Eesurrection as before.
The words o-w/xa Trveu/wrtKov cannot be explained without
a careful study of the meaning of the words o-w/za \l/vyjLK.6v,
translated incorrectly "natural body" in the Authorised
Version, on account of the poverty of our language, which
has no equivalent for i//vxi>Ko<s.1 But a o-co/za I/SV^LKOV means
not, of course, a body composed of soul, but a body —
a material organization — adapted to the need of that
part of us which we call our soul (^x1?)} and so adapted
because the \^x^ was the predominant characteristic of
the natural man. It follows of course that a crw/xa
TTvevpaTLKov means a material organization corresponding to
the needs of that higher part of our being which we call
7rve£/xa, or spirit. One of the objects of Christ's coming
was to revivify this rvaJ/io, which had dwindled almost to
nothing through the spread of human corruption. And,
when thus revivified, it will need a proper organ in which
to exercise its powers. This is the crw/Aa Tn/ev/xariKov, or
spiritual body, which might be expected to surpass the
o-w/xa I/'VXIKOV, or body corresponding to the needs of soul,
as much as the 7rve{yza, or spirit, surpasses the ^v\^ or
soul. Hence the higher qualities of the Risen Body of
our Lord, which are destined to be transmitted to us from
Him, when we, like Him, have attained to the Eesurrection
of the Dead. In what, precisely, the Risen Body of our
Lord differs from His pre-Eesurrection Body we cannot tell.
Some have imagined that as visibility was the normal
condition of the pre-Eesurrection Body, invisibility is the

1 Professor MILLIGAN, Resurrection, p. 19, renders it by the
inelegant and inadequate word "soulish." But our language does
not possess a better. Psychic, at present at least, conveys no ideas
to the ordinary reader. [Animal, its true equivalent, is now used in
a lower sense altogether.]

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 229

normal condition of the post-Resurrection Body, and that
any departure from that normal condition would involve a
miracle. But this is a mere conjecture, and appears to
involve an absurdity. For Holy Writ teaches us that
there is mutual recognition in the abodes of the Blessed.
But such recognition were impossible if the Resur
rection body were invisible.1 Some have imagined that
in the Risen Body of Christ, on account of its ethereal
character, there is, and can be, no Blood, but that the place
of the Blood was supplied by some more subtle vehicle
of the principle of life.2 It is lawful, of course, for us
to speculate on these matters within the limits permitted
us in the Christian Creed. But it is not lawful to
dogmatize. And speculation itself, unrestrained by the
sense of the mystery of things unseen, may easily become
irreverent familiarity. We shall do best, therefore, to
remain silent in the presence of so great a Mystery,
thankfully receiving what information God has been pleased
to vouchsafe us in His Holy Word, and waiting His good
time for that further knowledge which He has promised to
give to those who seek aright.

The effects of the Resurrection of Christ on the lives
of those who believe on Him must next be considered.
In order to estimate this, it is necessary to understand
how it was that our Blessed Lord was able to rise again.
First, He rose on account of His Divine Power, which
St. Paul tells us He manifested when He rose from the
dead.3 But even Divine Power, as we have seen, cannot
achieve impossibilities, and there are impossibilities, even

1 Possibly, however, what is meant is invisibility to the eyes of our
present mortal body.

2 Our Lord, when risen, speaks of His Flesh and Bones, but not of
His Flesh and Blood. See MILLIGAN, Resurrection, p. 13.

3 Rom. i. 4. St. Paul uses the word bpi<r6ti>Tos — "marked out,"
meaning that the Resurrection was the visible proof of the Divine
Power of Christ.

230 THE CREEDr

to God Himself. He cannot deny Himself. He cannot
do that which ought not to be done. He cannot raise
that which ought to remain in the tomb. And so St.
Paul, in the passage just referred to, adds that Christ
was marked out as the Son of God by the Resurrection
"according to the spirit of holiness." That is to say,
Christ had not deserved to die, and His Resurrection
proclaimed the fact to all creation. He had committed
no sin, and, therefore, death had no power over Him. " It
was not possible that He should be holden" by death.1
Only "the soul that sinneth" has been condemned to
"die."2 And so the Death of Christ was the result of
no necessity. Of His own free will He laid down a life
which He had "power to lay down," and "power to take
again." And so He rose triumphant from the grave as the
Conqueror of sin and death.8 It is this victorious Life
which He transmits to us. Not merely does He vouchsafe

1 Acts ii. 24. 2 Ezek. xviii. 4, 20.

8 John x. 17, 18. ATHANASIUS, in his Treatise on the Incarnation,
chap. 9, has a striking passage, in which he tells us how the incor
ruptible Son of God, united to us by the bond of similarity (i.e. our
human nature), "clothed us all with immortality in the promise of
His Resurrection," and by dwelling in a body like ours, brought the
devices of our enemies to nought, and had power thoroughly to dissipate
the corruption of death. The whole of IRENAEUS' fifth book Against
Heresies magnifies the Divine Power of the Risen Christ, and teaches
the doctrine contained in the text. But inasmuch as (1) it is directed
against the heretics who denied the possibility of a resurrection of
the material part of man, which they deemed essentially corrupt;
(2) because, in consequence, he deals rather with the future resurrec
tion to life than our present resurrection from sin ; and (3) because
like Scripture itself, he makes no attempt to separate the sphere of
the Incarnation from that in which the life of the Risen and Ascended
Lord operates — the doctrine must be inferred rather from the teaching
of the whole book than from any particular part of it, unless we
except the fine passage (chaps. vi.-xii.) in which he speaks of the
work of the Spirit revivifying us here, as an earnest of the work He
shall effect in us hereafter.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OP JESUS CHRIST. 231

that we shall share the nature which He took in the womb
of the Blessed Virgin, but He gives us of that nature as
crucified, as glorified, as ascended. By our baptism we are
partakers not only of Christ's nature, but of that nature
in all the aspects of Its struggle with sin, "We are baptized
into Christ's Death1 by being united to that spirit of
sacrifice in which He offered Himself for the sins of the
world; by dying, as He did, to sin; by "crucifying the
whole body of sin."2 We are baptized into His burial,3
as marking the destruction of evil desires and l^abits,
typified by the "body of sin" which He bare. We are
baptized into His Resurrection,4 as being united to that
power whereby He has trampled sin and death under foot.
And thus we are described as having been potentially raised
with Him, in the sense that the power of His Resurrection
is ours, to the precise extent to which our faith enables us to
realize and to use it. The Resurrection of Christ, though a
consequence of the Incarnation, marks "an advance" upon
the condition of His humanity previous to His death.5 Of this
advance we, by our faith, are made partakers. The Incar
nation is the source of all our regenerate life. But we
only partake of the source through the stream. It is not
the Humanity of Christ simply as He took it in birth, of
which we are partakers, but of that Life as perfected in the
struggle with, and victory over, sin. It is an unworthy
conception of the priceless blessings of redemption which
would confine them to one particular aspect of His redeeming
work. Christ took our nature, it is true. But in taking it,
He created it anew. He sanctified it by victory over temp-

1 Rom. vi. 3, 4.

2 Rom. vi. 6, 11. Gal. ii. 20 ; v. 24. 3 Col. ii. 12.

4 Rom. vi. 4, 11. Gal. ii. 20. Eph. ii. 5. Col. ii. 12 ; iii. 1, &c.

5 MILLIGAN, Resurrection, pp. 129-131. This passage marks an
advance on the theology of the Protestant bodies.

232 THE CREED.

tation. Accepting its liability to death, yet in and beyond
death He held the fortress of His Manhood inviolate. But
not until His Resurrection was accomplished did that
Humanity receive its final development. It is this whole
Christ that we receive — the Christ Who was born, Who
lived a blameless life, Who offered Himself in sacrifice to
the Father in His Death, Who rose again with majesty,
Who lives for evermore at the Right Hand of God.1 We
are made alive in Him by the Divine Power of His Father,
which " raised Him from the dead," and also made Him to
"sit" at that Father's "Right Hand in the heavenly places,
far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion,
and every name that is named, not only in this world, but
in the world to come."2 In virtue of our union with the
transcendent merits of this Exalted and Sanctified Pattern
and Guide, we are enabled to tread in His steps, to battle
with sin, to crucify it, to conquer it, to trample it under
foot, according to the measure of the faith to which each
one of us has attained.3 And the result of this conflict
— this ultimate victory over evil, which is the fruit of
our faith — will be our final and irrevocable association
with Christ in His Risen life. The Resurrection, as we
have seen, has its present effects on our condition. But
those effects are only preparatory to a higher condition
of blessedness in the future. "As in Adam all die,
even so in Christ shall all be made alive." "If we
have become united with Christ by the likeness of the
Death of the Son of God, we shall be also by the
likeness of His Resurrection." We must first rise with

1 Heb. x. 12.

2 See Eph. i. 17 — ii. 7. It is only by repeated perusal and
meditation that we can catch somewhat of the spirit of this
magnificent passage, so instinct with the fire that comes down from
heaven.

3 Rom. xii. 3. Eph. iv. 16.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OP JESUS CHRIST. 233

Him from sin, and then rise with Him from death.
This last privilege we will consider when we arrive afc
article "the Resurrection of the Dead, and the life
of the world to come."1

SECTION IV.
"AND ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN, AND SITTETH ON THE RIGHT

The fact of our Lord's Ascension is mentioned in two of
the Gospels, and in the Acts of the Apostles, and is assumed
in the remaining Gospels and in the Epistles. The last
twelve verses of St. Mark's Gospel are, it is true, absent
from many of the best copies, and their genuineness is
therefore uncertain. But the testimony of St. Luke is
distinct, both in his Gospel, and in the Acts.2 Of the value
to be attached to his testimony we have already spoken.3
And St. John, writing after the other Evangelists, and
evidently with a knowledge of the story of Christ in the
form in which they had published it, not only does not
contradict or modify their statement that Christ ascended
into heaven, but implies it when he records the question,
" What, then, if ye should behold the Son of Man ascending
where He was before?"4 Moreover, in St. John's narrative

1 For further information on this subject, consult MILLIGAN'S
Lectures on the Resurrection, which gather up a vast deal of most
valuable modern teaching on this important point, especially pp.
183-188.

2 It must be admitted, however, that Tischendorf and Westcott
and Hort bracket the reference to the Ascension in the Gospel, though
against strong authority, both of Versions and MSS.

3 See p. 147.

4 John vi. 62. It ought not to escape us that a similar allusion
occurs in St. John's report of our Lord's discourse on Regeneration
to that which occurs here, in His address on the nourishment of

234 THE CREED.

He expressly declares that He is about to ascend.1 Nor do
St. Matthew's utterances in any way contradict the rest.
On the contrary, they clearly presuppose it. For what else
was likely to have become of Him to whom " all authority "
had been given "in heaven and on earth"? The only way
in which the story of the Ascension could be disproved
would be by an authentic narrative stating the time and
manner of Christ's second death, if it be not palpably
absurd to suppose that He Who rose from the dead by
His inherent power could -possibly be again subject to the
law of mortality. St. Matthew evidently, to use a favourite
phrase of German critics, "knows nothing" of any such
second death. It follows, therefore, that some such event
as the Ascension must have been supposed by the writers
of the New Testament to have taken place.

The Ascension will also be found to be assumed in the
earliest documents of the Christian Church. Our Lord
Himself spoke of being "lifted up from," or "out of the
earth."2 And if the words in the first instance refer to
His Crucifixion, yet, viewed in the light of the statements
in other books of Scripture, they may be held, to refer also
to His Ascension.8 The early fragment of the Gospel
according to St. Mark, above referred to (if it be not a part
of the original Gospel — a question which does not at present
appear to be settled), mentions Christ's Session at the Eight
Hand of God.4 So does St. Paul on many occasions.5 The
Revelation of St. John confirms the statements of St. Paul.6

the new life. Both processes are thus declared to depend in some
way on Christ's Ascension.

1 John xx. 17.

2 John iii. 14 ; viii. 28 ; xii. 32, 34.

3 PEARSON, On the Creed, p. 274.

4 Mark xvi. 19.

5 Rom. viii. 34; 1 Cor. xv. 25 ; Eph. i. 20, ii. 6 ; Col. iii. 1.

6 Rev. v. 6-8 ; xxi. 22 ; xxii. 3.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OP JESUS CHRIST. 235

So does St. Stephen in his last speech.1 The author of the
Epistle to the Hebrews repeatedly mentions the Session at
God's Eight Hand as a fact.2 But if Christ now sits at
God's Right Hand, there must have been an elevation of
His Manhood thither. It is therefore quite contrary to
the evidence before us to contend, as some have done, that
the Ascension is a later development of Christian belief.
In the First Epistle to the Corinthians, an Epistle the
genuineness of which has never been seriously disputed,
St. Paul not only speaks of Christ's Session, but quotes
Ps. ex. 1 as a prophecy of that Session. This Epistle was
written not more than twenty-seven years after the event
to which it refers must have happened, if it happened at
all. And as Christ Himself refers to the same Psalm,
a fact recorded in all the Synoptic Gospels, we have a
further strong evidence of the same fact from our Lord's
own anticipatory reference to it.3

When we come to inquire what is meant by our Lord's
Ascension, the question involves a certain amount of
difficulty. Whether our Lord ascended into some definite
locality or not, is, however, in reality a question of
no moment. A mysterious disappearance, such as is re
corded of Him, would, in the case of One Who had truly
died and risen again, be precisely the same thing. Whither
soever, and in what manner soever, He thus disappeared,
the Christian Church must, as a matter of course, come

1 Acts vii. 55. " He appeared standing to Stephen, as ready to
assist him, as ready to plead for him, as ready to receiva him ; and
He is oftener represented as sitting, not for any positional variation,
but for the variety of His effect and operation." PEARSON, On
the Creed, p. 278.

2 Heb. i. 3 ; vii. 26 ; viii. 1 ; x. 12 ; xii. 2.

3 Matt. xxii. 44 ; Mark xii. 36 ; Luke xx. 42, 43. For direct
references in the Epistles to our Lord's Ascension see Eph. iv. 8-10;
1 Tim. iii. 16 ; Heb. iv. 14, ix. 12, 24. See also Heb. vii. 25.

236 THE CREBD.

to the conclusion that He is with God. And to be with
God is to be in heaven. For heaven is not a place, but
a state. The fact that both in the Old and New Testament
"the heavens" is frequently used for "heaven," and that
this phrase clearly means all space which is not earth,
makes it doubtful if there is any prescribed locality for
the glorified bodies of the redeemed to dwell in. Gregory
of Nazianzus speaks of the Resurrection as a subject on
which it was permissible to speculate in his day.1 It may
not, therefore, be fair or wise to interdict all speculation
in ours.

With regard to Christ's Session at God's Right Hand we
are on firmer ground. No one has contended that we ought
to attach any local or materialistic sense to this article of
our Creed. Not only is God, as Spirit, incapable of any
local habitation, but the term Right Hand, when applied
to Him, is obviously a figure of speech.2 Therefore all
divines, ancient and modern, have agreed to see in these
words nothing more than an expression of the high dignity
enjoyed by Him Who, having conquered sin and death, is
even in His Humanity elevated to the high place which,
in virtue of His Divinity, He has ever enjoyed beside3 the
Eternal Father.

In this exalted position He reigns over all things in
heaven and earth. He is "King of kings, and Lord of
lords."4 If all things are not yet put under Him5 it is
because the kingdom of evil is still permitted to resist the
Eternal Will. Yet, sin and sinners only excepted, He
reigns over all.6 And many whose deliverance from sin

1 See p. 389.

2 PEARSON, On the Creed, p. 277.

3 So Trapd, in John i. 1, has been interpreted by many.

4 Rev. xix. 16. 5 Heb. ii. 8.
6 1 Cor. xv. 25.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 237

is not yet complete, own Him as their Lord, and look
to Him as their only hope. He is the " Head over all
things unto His Church."1 His Name " is above every
name." At that Name " every knee doth bow." Every
tongue confesses His Lordship.2 From Him all rule and
authority is derived.3 The Eternal Father Himself has
thus addressed Him : " Thy Throne, 0 God, is for ever
and ever, and the Sceptre of Uprightness4 is the sceptre
of Thy Kingdom."5

The first point in the spiritual significance of our Lord's
Ascension and Session at God's Right Hand is there
fore the lordship over all things in heaven and earth,
which thus becomes His Prerogative as Man. But there
is another important point which must not be allowed to
escape us. Jesus Christ not only reigns in heaven as King ;
He appears, from some statements we find in Holy Writ,
to offer there as priest. As High Priest, we are taught, He
had, of necessity, "something to offer."6 This offering, we
further learn, is Himself. But though He made this
offering of Himself, once for all, in His Death,7 we are
not compelled to conclude, as many have done, that the
slaying of the victim completed the offering. In the
Mosaic ritual, after the victim was slain, its blood, which
was its life, was offered to God by being sprinkled, or
smeared, on the horns of the altar.8 Thus the offering,

1 Eph. i. 22.
a Phil. ii. 9-11.

3 Col. ii. 10. fa tarw 17 Ace^aX?) irdffijs &px^ Ka^ t£ov<rlas.

4 evdfrryTo*. So in LXX. Literally, as in margin of Authorised
Version, Tightness, or straightuess, which is also the sense of the
Hebrew in Pa. xlv. 6.

5 Heb. i. 8.

6 Heb. viii. 3.

7 Heb. vii. 27.

8 Lev. iv. 7, 18, 30.

238 THE CREED.

once made, had to be presented. And in the ritual of the
Day of Atonement the priest passed within the veil to
offer the blood of the slain victim upon the Mercy-seat.
The antitype of this, the Epistle to the Hebrews informs
us, was the Ascension of our Lord into "a holy place not
made with hands,"1 there to present His Spotless Life,
once offered, for ever before the Throne of God. Thus
He appears in the centre of the heavenly worship as the
Lamb that had been slain.2 Not that we are to regard
this passage as meaning the offering simply of His Death.
It is not as slain, but as having been slain f that the Lamb
stands in the midst of the throne. He stands not there
as dead, but as the very centre of the life there manifested.4
But His Sacrifice is, nevertheless, an ever-present fact,
of which His very Presence in the heavenly courts is a con
tinuous offering. It is His Life, as offered in Sacrifice, and
as glorified by a triumph over evil, capable of being achieved
by Sacrifice alone, which pleads thus powerfully for man's
salvation, and which calls for such exultant homage from
the highest of created beings. The same truth is involved
in the description of our Lord's Priesthood as "after the
order of Melchizedek." That Priesthood is declared to be
unlike that of Aaron in regard to its unchangeableness and
permanence.5 It was made "not after the law of a carnal
commandment, but after the power of an endless life."6
That endless (or rather indissoluble) Life never ceases to
be presented before the Throne of God. Being a perfect
Life, it pleads for the shortcomings of the lives of all who
by faith are united to the Incarnate Lord. Offered in the

1 Heb. ix. 24. 2 Rev. v. 6. s ws taQaynfrov. Rev. v. 6.

4 Rev. v. 7. 6 Heb. vii. 24, 27.

8 Heb. vii. 16. " Endless " would be better rendered, as in margin
of Revised Version, by "indissoluble." See Bishop WESTCOTT'S
note in loc. For the priesthood of Melchizedek, see MILLIGAN,
Ascension, pp. 83-112.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 239

first instance instead of ours, it ultimately completes the pro
cess of redemption by having become indissolubly united to
ours. Thus the Eternal and Unchangeable Priest may not un
reasonably be regarded as continually offering on our behalf
the Life which could not fail to satisfy God, and which, by
His gift of Himself to us— a gift appropriated by our faith —
tends ever to become more closely associated with our own.
This view is strengthened by the statement in the Epistle
to the Hebrews, that He Who possesses the unchangeable1
priesthood is "able to save to the uttermost2 those who
draw near to God through Him," since He "is ever living
to make intercession for them."3 The idea of intercession
is often limited to the offering up of prayer, and thereby
conclusions have sometimes been drawn unfavourable to the
doctrine of Christ's Divinity. But the word in the original
(eVrvyx«v(l))j as well as the English word Intercession itself,
does not properly signify the offering of prayer, but means
acting on a pwson's behalf, or even taking a part, favourable
or unfavourable, in his affairs.4 Jesus Christ lives for ever,
and exercises His unchangeable priesthood that He may
thus eternally take an interest in our concerns. "Holy,

v, that which cannot pass away.

2 e£s rb TracreX^s, i.e. thoroughly, or completely. 3 Heb. vii. 25.

4 The original signification of tvrvyx&vu is to meet with. Henco
comes the signification to concern oneself with, as in Acts xxv. 24,
Rom. xi. 2. "It may be a matter of regret that the English language
seems to possess no better word than 'intercession' to express the
action of our High Priest in heaven after He had presented our
offering to the Father. For this, however, there is no help; and all
that can be done is to impress upon the inquirer the fact that
' intercession ' is a wider word than ' prayer.' " MILLIGAN, On the
Ascension, p. 152. In a note he suggests "inter-action." Un
fortunately we have in theology to face the fact that nearly
every term we employ has drifted away more or less from the sense
in which it was employed in Scripture. " Intercession " itself literally
means "going between," and thence inter-action or mediation. There
is originally in it no idea whatever of prayer.

240 THE CREED.

guileless, undefiled, and separated from sinners, and made
higher than the heavens,"1 He pleads in heaven the in
dissoluble bond — that is, His glorified and sanctified Flesh —
whereby He is united to man, and thereby wins for us a
pardon and purification destined ultimately to effect for
us an eternal union with God.2

But with this priesthood in heaven is also conjoined a
priesthood on earth. Jesus Christ is ever present with
mankind by means of His Spirit. Therefore from us men,
also, in whom He dwells, there arises to heaven the same
presentation and pleading of the One Sacrifice once offered,
though after a manner which only faintly and dimly repre
sents the Eternal Priesthood of Christ above. This presenta
tion and pleading assumes two forms. First, there is the
priesthood of the Church and of every individual member
of it, which is so frequently referred to by the writers of
the New Testament. "We have been made a kingdom
and priests,"3 — so the redeemed are represented as saying
by the author of the Apocalypse — by Him Who redeemed4
us to God by His Blood. As members of that "royal
priesthood," it is our duty to offer up spiritual sacrifices
to God.5 Nor are these simply sacrifices of praise and
thanksgiving, but they imply that the whole life of each
one of us should be a continuous sacrifice, in union with
the Sacrifice of our Lord and Saviour upon the altar of the
Cross. Thus we plead the One Sacrifice before the Throne
of God in all our works and ways. In the next place,
there is the expression given to this fact in the public

1 Heb. vii. 26.

2 Some such idea as this of the solidarity of the Head with the
members is involved in the words, " I ascend unto My Father and
your Father, and to My God and your God " (John xi. 17). See also
Eph. ii. 6. 3 Rev. i. 6.

4 Literally loosed ; or, according to some copies, washed.
6 1 Peter ii. 5, 9. Cf. Rom. xii. 1.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 241

worship of the Christian Church. The only form of
such worship prescribed by our Lord Himself is the solemn
memorial1 of His Death, which He instituted on the night
before His Crucifixion. It consists of a perpetual presentation
and pleading before God, by His Church, of the merits of
His Sacrifice, as well as of a continual public acknowledg
ment of the fact that the spirit of that Sacrifice should
pervade our lives ; a continual recognition of the union of
purpose between Him and His redeemed ones; a continual
offering and presentation, by His members here below, of
their hearts and lives to God, that they may be hallowed,
purified, perfected by the permeation of their bodies, souls,
and spirits with the Mind and Will of Christ, as manifested
in the full, perfect, and sufficient Sacrifice, Oblation, and
Satisfaction which He made for the sins of the whole
world. Thus does the Church on earth " fill up that which
is lacking of the afflictions of Christ."2 Thus, both in her
public assemblies and in the daily life of her members, does
the smoke of the One Sacrifice, as it is being unceasingly
consumed by the fire of Eternal Love, rise evermore to the
Eternal Throne. Thus does she offer the worship at once
of the closet, of the sanctuary, of the market-place, to Him
" Who is alive and was dead, to Whom the keys of death
and Hades belong, Who is alive for evermore."3 And there
is a special fitness, moreover, in the teaching of God's Word,
that it is Christ's Death which is presented here below, His
Life which pleads for us in the courts above. For here the
Church is militant; there her Head stands at God's Right
Hand triumphant. Here the Church is suffering, there
her Head dwells in joy and bliss unspeakable. Here we
are struggling to free ourselves from the dominion of sin
by the Virtue of the Adorable Sacrifice; there the Lamb,
once sacrificed, stands above all created things, presenting

1 Or remembrance, dyd/xi/^crts. 2 Col. i. 24. 8 Rev. i. 18.

242 THE CREED.

the Life in which Sacrifice is now consummated in Victory,
and Majesty, and Glory.

It is to the presentation and acceptance by God, in
heaven, of this perfect fulfilment of His Will in regard
to mankind by "His Beloved Son, in Whom He takes
pleasure,"1 that we owe the gift of the Holy Spirit. "It
is for your advantage (o-vpfapti fyuv) that I go away, for
if I go not away the Paraclete will not come to you; but
if I depart, I will send Him unto you."2 God's Spirit
had ceased to "strive" effectually "in man" after the
Fall;3 but when man was not only restored to his original
innocence, but elevated to the highest heaven on account of
his victory over temptation, the Spirit could once more
animate him with Divine influences, and strive within him
by the power of the Humanity, redeemed in Christ. The
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Catholic Church
would have us believe, are each interpenetrated with each
other's Being.4 And as Christ, as Man, was inhabited by
the Divine Spirit, so the glorified Humanity of Christ,
indissolubly united to His Divinity, is imparted by the
indwelling of the Spirit in us. It is by that glorified
Humanity that the Spirit is enabled to strive effectually
in us. "What man has done, man may do." What has
been effected by the Head, is possible to the members.
And thus upon the complete fulfilment of the Divine Will
by the Man Christ Jesus, and upon His ineffable union with
the Godhead, depends the sanctifying work which is the
special function of the Holy Spirit.

1 iv & 7?u56/c?7(ra, Matt. iii. 17.

2 John xvi. 7. The word "expedient" gives a false impression at
the present time, as being usually opposed to "right," and seeming
to savour rather of human contrivance than the spiritual profit of
our nature. 3 Gen. vi. 3.

4 MILLIGAN, Ascension, p. 210. This treatise is even more valuable
than that on the Resurrection, and should have a place in the library
of every student.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 243

SECTION V.

"AND HE SHALL COME AGAIN WITH GLORY TO JUDGE BOTH THE
QUICK AND THE DEAD, WHOSE KINGDOM SHALL HAVE NO END."

The literal rendering of this clause is, " and coming again
with glory to judge living and dead, of Whose kingdom
there shall not be an end." The article is necessary to a
rational belief. For if there be no judgment hereafter, then
is this world a moral chaos, the iniquity of which it is im
possible to estimate. A friend of the writer's once, when
going to take duty at a church some distance from his home,
fell in with some French atheists, with whom, being well
acquainted with the French language, he entered into con
versation. The discussion turned on the Being of God. They
denied the existence of God, and with the peculiar bitterness
which seems characteristic of Continental unbelief, they de
clared that if there were such a Being, they would kill Him,
if they could catch Him, because of the misery He permitted
to exist upon the earth. And, granted the premisses that
there is no future judgment and no future life, it is impos
sible to see where these men were wrong. A God Who
could permit all the miseries, cruelties, injustices, and in
equalities which exist, and have existed, in this world, with
out any design of setting matters right in another, would be
an object, not of love, but of hate. And it would seem more
reasonable to believe that the present condition of things
owed its origin to the play of finite and imperfect forces, than
to imagine a Being so malevolent as to have brought about
the present state of things by His own will, and neither to
have designed nor permitted a remedy. The festering and
seething mass of corruption and crime which is to be found,
especially where large companies of men are gathered to
gether ; the wretchedness produced by poverty ; the grinding
yoke of oppression and misgovernment, foreign or domestic ;
the thousand injustices, and unkindnesses, and brutalities
practised on men by their fellows, which have made men

244 THE CREED.

gnash their teeth in impotent rage and despair ; the anguish
of tender women exposed to outrage worse than death; —
what an utterly unimaginable sum of intolerable agony is
expressed in this ! Add to it the devastations produced by
war, with disease and famine following in its train ; the fierce
passions unloosed by it ; the unbridled ambition of rulers ;
the desolation to be found in the track of a devouring con
queror. Add to these acuter miseries still, because, if pos
sible, yet more wantonly unjust — the cruel fate of most of
the sufferers for conscience* sake ; the early Christian martyrs;
the no less to be honoured pioneers of human progress, and
especially the earliest advocates of civil and religious liberty ;
Friar Bacon accused of witchcraft ; Tyndale, to whom, more
than anyone else, we owe our English Bible, imprisoned, and
finally strangled, for daring to think for himself and encour
age others to do the same ; the martyrs of the Reformation,
at home and abroad, immured in dungeons, and finally burnt
at the stake; the martyrs of the Eoman reaction, who,
whether we agree with them or not, must be admitted to
have suffered for conscience' sake. Were there no future judg
ment, no hope that in the end equal justice would be meted
out to all, how could we believe in Eternal Good, in a Judge
of all the world who could be trusted to "do right"?1 And
how practise goodness ourselves when the powers of the
Universe itself were in league to mock our efforts 1

But, as Bishop Butler has shown, the very order of nature
witnesses against such a creed. The facts of human life in
the present world testify to the existence of forces at work
tending to bring about ultimate retribution ; only the present
world is too contracted a sphere for them to work out their
full results. We are irresistibly impelled to the conclusion
that there are other fields of existence beyond our ken in
which the moral purpose, plainly disclosed here, will attain
its fulfilment.2 Accordingly we find Butler's conclusions

1 Gen. xviii. 25.

2 BUTLER, Analogy, part i. See also PEARSON, On the Creedt p. 295.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OP JESUS CHRIST. 245

anticipated under the older dispensation, though the antici
pations were not thought out, like his, in logical form. The
moral and mental struggles of Abraham and the Psalmist1
ultimately shaped themselves into the definite conclusions
found in Ecclesiastes, in the Book of Daniel, and in the
Apocryphal Books of the Wisdom of Solomon and of
Enoch.2 The Lord would come to judgment. There were
records in which men's good and evil deeds were scrupulously
noted down, and a vast concourse of angels and disembodied
spirits would be present when final justice was done.

And these previsions were definitely ratified by the Revela
tion of God in Christ. There is to be " a Day of wrath and
revelation of the righteous judgment of God," a Day " when
God shall judge the secrets of men, by Jesus Christ."3 Of
that Day the prophets had frequently spoken beforehand,
though it is possible that they themselves had but a limited
idea of the scope of their own prophecies.4 That " Day of
the Lord " is the Day when Christ shall judge the world.
None of us can escape that judgment.5 All nations shall be
gathered before Him.6 The angels shall be sent to gather them
from the four winds of heaven.7 The books shall be opened,
and every one of us shall be judged according to what those
books contain.8 And the sentence shall be either, " Come, ye
blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the beginning of the world," or, " Depart from Me, ye
cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and
his angels." 9 And " these," we are told, " shall go away into
eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." 18

That Christ will return to the earth to execute this
judgment we are plainly told. He will "so come in like
manner" as "the apostles beheld Him going into heaven,"

1 Pss. xxxvii.; Ixxiii. a Eccl. xii. 14 ; Daniel vii. 9, 10 ; Jude 14.

3 Rom. ii. 5, 16. 4 Isa. i.-v. ; Joel ii. ; Zeph. i. 15, &c.

5 Rom. xiv. 10 ; 2 Cor. v. 10.

6 Matt. xxv. 32. Of. 2 Thesa. ii. 1. 7 Matt. xxiv. 31.
8 Rev. xx. 12. 9 Matt. xxv. 34, 41. 10 Matt. xxv. 46.

246 THE CREED.

we learn from the Angels' message to them as they gazed
on the cloud which hid Him from their sight.1 He "will
descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel and with the trump of God."2 And the reason
why He "shall so come" is also revealed. He receives
authority to execute judgment because He is the (or a) Son
of Man"3 We have already seen that it is only through
the union of the Godhead with the manhood that our feeble
understandings can approach the mystery of the Being of
God.4 And this truth is the basis of the Revelation of
God in Christ from the beginning to the end. We can
only understand God's final dispensation of justice when
it is administered in a shape in which our limited faculties
are capable of apprehending it. It is therefore "by the
Man Whom He hath ordained" that He will manifest
His "righteousness" in the "judgment of the world."5
And this is why "the Father" doth not "judge any man,
but hath given all judgment unto the Son."6 The Father's
" original, supreme, autocratorical, judiciary power " is
"delegated, derived, given by commission," to Christ.7
And this because the Will of the Father and that of the
Son are one, and the human will of Christ is retained
in submission to the Divine Will by the union of God
and Man in one Person. Thus in the judgment, as in all
other of His acts on earth, He comes, not to do a Will
of His own, but " the will of Him that sent Him."8

1 Acts. i. 11. 2 1 Thess. iv. 16. 3 John v. 27.

4 See p. 113. 5 Acts xvii. 31. 6 John v. 22.

7 PEARSON, On the Creed, p. 297. It is true that the reason given
for this in John v. 22 is not precisely the same as that given in the
text. But there is no real difference. The Divine powers are given
to the Son that He may have equal honour with the Father. But it
is only as One "equal to the Father, as touching His Godhead," that
He could in any sense be entrusted with the task of revealing the
Father's Will and purpose to man. See John i. 18, and cf. Matt,
xi. 25 ; Luke x. 22. 8 John v. 30.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. 247

But if He come, as Man, to pronounce the Divine
judgment upon men, His Presence must be a personal and
visible Presence. Some divines have endeavoured to dismiss
the idea of the "Great Assize," as it has been sometimes
called, and to spiritualize the descriptions given us in Holy
Writ. They refer, it is said, to the fact of Divine judg
ment, unceasingly pronounced on human actions by the
Holy Spirit of God working in and through the human
conscience. But it is by no means clear that this
explanation satisfies the conditions required by Scripture
language. It is quite true that the literal explanation
has its difficulties, and that an exaggerated literalism is
altogether foreign to the spirit of revealed religion.1 Yet,
on the other hand, we may profitably remember that many
of the most minute details of the prophecies concerning
our Lord were literally fulfilled, and that our inability to
conceive of a literal fulfilment of the prophecies concerning
the judgment is no sufficient argument against its possibility,
since God "fulfils Himself in many ways,"2 and He may
be able to bring about such a fulfilment by means altogether
beyond our power to imagine. At least, it is our duty to
note that we are told our Lord will return to the earth;3
that the judgment will take place while men are living on
the earth.4 It will be a judgment of the living — the
"quick" — as well as the dead.5 Those who are "in the
graves shall hear His Voice and shall come forth."6 Those
who are dead shall "rise first," and those who are "alive
and are left shall be caught up together with them in the
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air."7 Yet though "we
shall not all sleep, we shall all be changed," and our natural,

Jer. xxxi. 33 ; Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27 ; Rom. ii. 29, vii. 6 ; 2 Cor. iii.

TENNYSON, Idylls of tJie King.

Acts i. 11. 4 Matt. xxiv. 28 ; Luke xvii. 26-30.

Acts x. 42 ; 2 Tim. iv. i ; 1 Peter iv. 5.

John v. 28, 29. * 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17.

248 THE CREED.

or rather psychic^ body shall be converted into a spiritual
one; our corruptible body shall be replaced by one which
knows no corruption.1 Whether we are entitled to press
the literal exactness of every detail given in the Scriptures
concerning the Last Judgment may very fairly be questioned;
but it may equally be fairly contended that we are not
justified in reducing clear and plain statements of Holy
Writ to an indefinite spiritualization.. We may further do
well to bear in mind that to spiritualize properly means
to intensify, to render more real; but that in some mouths
it is equivalent to a process of evaporation, or explaining
away. At least we cannot escape from as much as this :
that at some epoch in the future there will be a great
Restoration of all things,2 when the old order, embracing
sin and death, shall have passed away, when the Devil,
Death, and Hades shall have been cast into the lake of
fire,3 and when righteousness and goodness, purity and
truth, shall alone flourish in the eternal kingdom of God.

We shall further discuss this question when we are called
upon to consider the true nature of " the life of the world
to come." For the present we will confine ourselves to a
very brief enunciation of the principles on which the Divine
Judgment will be pronounced. That judgment, we are
told, will be "according to truth."4 It will be a righteous

1 1 Cor. xv. 42-54. Bishop Pearson discusses the various readings
in v. 51. The MSS. are very discordant here. The kindred MSS.
K and B are opposed to each other, B supporting the A.V., and N
reading "we shall all sleep, but we shall not all be changed." A
leaves out the " not " altogether. E supports B, and C, F, and
G support X. The earliest testimony is that of Tertullian (circ. 200).
He clearly read as the Authorised Version does, as Sabatier has noted.
But his present text is in complete contradiction to the obvious drift
of the passage. The question will be found fully discussed in the
Editions of the Greek Testament issued by Tischendorf (Eighth
Edition), and by "Westcott and Hort.

8 Acts iii. 21. 8 Rev. xx. 10, 14. 4 Rom. ii. 2.

REDEMPTIVE WORK OP JESUS CHRISt. 24$

judgment.1 Drunkenness, violence, malice, dishonesty, will
be condemned. Cowardice,2 unbelief, foulness,3 murder, forni
cation, dealing with occult powers, idolatry and lying, will
be utterly banished from God's kingdom.4 And want of
mercy and loving-kindness,5 as well as mere lip-service,
without the devotion of the heart to God's Will,6 are as
alien to the spirit of the eternal kingdom which shall then
be fully established. Only those who have striven to have
a conscience void of offence toward God and toward man7 —
those who have set before them as an example in all their
dealings, the Life and Love of their Master, shall have part
or lot in that Blessed Life that knows no end.8

This doctrine is not only essential to our conception of
God as a God of Righteousness ; it is also necessary for our
admonition. It is true that "perfect love casteth out
fear."9 But it is also true that fear, as well as love, has
its place in the economy of salvation. The reaction from
a mode of preaching the Gospel of Christ, which appealed
almost entirely, in the first instance, to fear,10 has tended to
obscure the fact that fear cannot be banished from God's
dealings with men. In all systems of government by rewards
and punishments fear has a place; and there are hearts so
embruted with the indulgence of the passions, so corrupted
by the power of evil habits, that fear is the only motive to
which, in their case, we can appeal. It were as consistent
with mercy and tenderness to point out the inevitable

1 Rom. ii. 5. 2 del\oi. 3 tpde\vy/j>froi.

4 Rev. xxi. 8. Cf. Eph. v. 5, where drunkenness comes under the
same condemnation. 5 Matt xxv. 31-46.

6 Matt. vii. 22, 23 ; Luke xiii. 26, 27. Cf. Matt. xxiv. 46-51.

7 Acts xxiv. 16.

8 PEARSON, On the Creed, pp. 294-5. » 1 John iv. 18.

10 Bishop HARVEY GOODWIN, in reference to this teaching, well
says that in the past there has been "too much tendency to regard
judgment as simply synonymous with vengeance." Foundations of
the Creed, p. 236.

250 THE CREED.

consequences of the indulgence of evil habits, as to insist
either on the beauty of holiness in itself, or the blessings
which must, of necessity, fall to his share who follows after
it. An exclusive insistence on the Love of God may lull
men into indifference, just as an exclusive insistence on
God's Wrath may harden them into desperation. The easy
gospel of the present age is tending to destroy among us
the sense of sin, just as the unmeasured terms in which
the Wrath of God used to be proclaimed against all who
did not possess the religious sentiment was calculated to
evoke a defiant and rebellious spirit. He best reflects the
Mind of God who dwells alike, as do the Scriptures, on the
warnings and on the promises of God, remembering, how
ever, that under the Law the threatenings preponderated,
while the beneficent tidings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ
has subordinated fear to hope.

Lastly, the kingdom of Christ "has no end." This we
gather from passages such as Revelation x. 15, xii. 10,
xxi. 4, where we are told that the former things have an
end, but that when the New Jerusalem has come down
from heaven, a new condition of things shall commence, of
which no end is predicated. It will be a kingdom of Christ
which shall endure "unto the ages of the ages," i.e. for
ever. Of the nature of our life in that kingdom it does
not become us to speak. But we may, with reverence,
make mention of one mysterious utterance in connection
with it. We are told, in 1 Corinthians xv. 28, that when
"the end" is come, when "all rule, and authority, and
power" is "put in subjection under Christ's Feet," the
Son shall then "also Himself be subjected to Him Who
did subject all things unto Him, that God may be all in
all." I have discussed this question with some fulness
elsewhere,1 and the only conclusion to which I can come

1 Commentary on 1 Corinthians, Cambridge Bible for Schools.

THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JBS0S CHRIST. 251

is that Christ's mediatorial kingdom shall then have come
to an end; in other words, that His mediation, as Man,
will no longer be necessary, but that each one of the
redeemed shall enjoy the blessed privilege of immediate
access to God, by reason of the completeness with which
Christ's Humanity has been inwrought into theirs. For the
words, " that God may be all in all," clearly imply that each
one of us will, in that Day, be finally and irrevocably the
temple of the Blessed Trinity — Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost; that the "Tabernacle of God" will then "be with
men ; and He shall dwell with them, and they shall be His
peoples, and God Himself shall be with them and be their
God; and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes."1
[I have omitted a few lines from the conclusion of this
chapter in deference to a feeling expressed to me by one or
two men of reverent minds. Though the speculation in
volved in them appears to me to have been far within the
limits to which speculation, and even dogmatism, have been
pushed of late in the matter of the Kenosis, these last
excesses, as they seem to me, in that direction, have ap
parently given less pain than those which I have withdrawn.
It is not for me to explain the reason of this. But I have
withdrawn the passage because the last thing I should wish
to do would be to weaken reverence in an age like the

present.]

1 Kev. xxi. 3, 4.

CHAPTER VI.

"AND I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY GHOST, THE LORD AND
GIVER OF LIFE, WHO PROCEEDETH FROM THE FA THER
[AND THE SON], WHO WITH THE FATHER AND THE SON
TOGETHER IS WORSHIPPED AND GLORIFIED, WHO SPAKE
BY THE PROPHETS:'

THE whole of the articles in the Creed which relate to
the Holy Ghost will be treated in a single section,
because the order in which they come in the Creed itself is
not adapted to the mode of treatment it has been found
convenient to adopt in these pages.

I. The proofs of the Divinity and Personality of the
Holy Ghost have already been given in chap. iii. There
is no need, therefore, to enter upon them any further here.

II. The next point which demands our consideration is
the relation, as involved in the language of Scripture, of
the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity to the other two.
As this is a point on which, for nearly ten centuries, the
Eastern and Western Churches have been irreconcilably
at variance, it is desirable that it should be treated with
some fulness. It was very early in the history of the
Christian Church that signs of the approaching conflict
began to show themselves. It took its rise from a difference
in the way in which the Being of God was apprehended in
East and West respectively. The former concerned itself
more with the mode of the Divine Being, whether regarded
abstractedly, as it was in itself, or as it displayed itself in
the relations between the persons in the Sacred Trinity;

252

THE HOLY SPIRIT. 253

the practical genius of the latter concerned itself chiefly
with the fad of God's existence, disregarding the refine
ments which the philosophical mind of the East — possessing
as it did, in the Greek language, an admirable vehicle for
the utmost subtlety of thought — was accustomed to indulge.
The Latins laid stress on the undeniable truth that as the
Essence of God was common to each of the three Persons,
each must, in some sense or other, partake of the Essence of
the other two. And since there was a priority of order,
whereby the first two Persons were held to precede the
third,1 there must, of necessity, be a communication of
Essence from the Father and the Son to the Holy Ghost.
This fact they held to be supported by the language of
Scripture itself, which not only calls the Spirit the Spirit
of the Father, but also the Spirit of the Son and the
Spirit of Christ.2 The Easterns, inclined to lay stress on
the character rather than on the mere fact of the relations
between the three Divine Persons, insisted on the truth
that by the very necessity inherent in the nature of things
the Father alone could be the source of being, Divine or
created ; and that therefore the Spirit, though in some sense
He might be said to partake of the Essence of the Son,3 could
not be properly said to derive his existence from Him, but
only from the Father, the ultimate source (a^X7?) °f all
existence. The difference was aggravated by the difference
between the Greek and Latin languages. The former, in
speaking of the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Father,
used the word l/<7ro/)eueo-#cu (to go forth as from a source),
while the Latins used the word procedere, which simply
indicates the idea of coming from, without involving any idea

1 It must be carefully borne in mind that no order of time is here
meant.

2 Rom. viii. 9 ; Gal. iv. 6 ; 1 Pet. i. 11 ; of Jesus Christ, Phil. i. 19 ;
of Jesus, according to a well-supported reading, Acts xvi, 7.

3 " He shall receive of what is Mine." John xvi. 14,

254 THE CREED.

of origin.1 The difference was not long in growing more
acute. The Latins, determined in every possible way to
emphasize the Divinity of the Son, and His perfect equality
with His Father, began to teach the doctrine of the Double
Procession, as it was called, with considerable emphasis.
The Greeks, as rigidly conservative on this point as they
had previously been ready to assert their freedom to use
language not contained in Scripture when necessary to
define an important truth,2 entrenched themselves stub
bornly behind the words of Scripture and the Creed. Cyril
of Alexandria, it may be remarked, is the Eastern Father
who most closely approximates to the language of the West,
so great is the unanimity of Eastern theologians on this
point. Jesus Christ Himself, the Easterns said, had spoken
of the Spirit as proceeding (e/cTro/oewjaevov) from the Father,
and had said nothing about a Procession from the Son, and
it were better not to be "wise above what is written."
The Creed, moreover, was in their favour. At Nicaea the
words stood simply " and in the Holy Ghost." What have
come to be regarded as the Constantinopolitan additions,3
strictly confined themselves to Scripture language. TO CK
TOV TraTpbs €K7rop€v6fjL€vov are the original words of the
Creed, and up to the present day they are so recited at
the altars of the various Oriental Churches. The Latins,
however, were not to be so bound. In the fierce reaction
from the Arianism of the Goths which took place in Spain,
the equality of the Son with the Father, it was felt, must
be maintained in every possible way. In 589 King Eeccared

1 An illustration of the difference may be given thus. A traveller
going from Bristol to London may speak of himself as " proceeding "
from Swindon to London, though he did not start (tKiropeteo-dai) from
thence. Of course the illustration is most imperfect, but it may
assist the student to grasp the point at issue.

2 e.g., in their use of the words Homoousion and Theotokos.
8 Seetp. 5.

THE HOLY SPIRIT. 255

of Spain, who had just abjured Arianism, inserted the words
Filioque (and from the Son) in his copy of the Nicene
Creed, and caused it to be recited thus at the celebration of
the Holy Communion. The custom spread from Spain to
France. For the present, however, it attracted but little
attention. The Sixth Oecumenical Council, held at Con
stantinople in 682, paid no regard to it, but recited the
Creed as it had been handed down. In 809, however, the
Emperor Charles the Great, who had assumed the title
of Emperor of the West, and desired to play the same
part in theological controversy as had been played for
centuries by the Emperors of the East, held a Council
at Aix-la-Chapelle (or rather Aachen), where the doctrine
of the Double Procession was formulated, and supported by
the authority of the ancient Fathers. The decrees of the
Council were sent to Leo III., the then Pope. The Pope
replied with caution and modesty of language, such as
the Popes seldom condescended to use, but which prudence
dictated in the case of so mighty a potentate as the
Emperor Charles. The Pope replied that he could not
permit the Creed to be altered, for that nothing ought to
be altered in the decisions of a general Council illuminated
by the Holy Ghost. As for the doctrine in question, it
were doubtful, he added, whether it were desirable to deal
with such deep matters in a symbol intended for popular
use. The question belonged to the deeper and more subtle
mysteries of our holy faith (sacrae fidei altiora mystGria,
subtiliora sacramenta), and should be reserved for the
consideration of those who were capable of entering into
them. To bring matters to a point, the Pope caused the
Creed to be engraved on two silver shields, without the
clause Charles had proposed to insert, and he had it
publicly hung up in the most conspicuous place in his
Church, " pro cautela orthodoxae fidei," as he put it. It

256 THE CREED.

might be supposed that the Pope, on a point of this vital
kind, must be regarded as speaking ex cathedra^ especially
as he was supported on this point by the decision of a pre
decessor. For in 794, at the Council of Frankfort, summoned
by Charles the Great in opposition to the decrees of the
Seventh Oecumenical Council (as the East and West
finally agreed to call it) in regard to image-worship, Charles
had already requested the then Pope, Hadrian I., to
insert the words Filioque into the Creed, and Hadrian
had replied that he could not venture to innovate upon
the decrees of the Six Holy Councils, the last of which
had decreed that the Creed in its unaltered condition " was
sufficient for the perfect knowledge and confirmation of
religion," for that " what it explicitly teaches concerning
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost is perfect."
Great as are the advantages of the Roman system in the
case of those who are willing to pay it implicit obedience,
it has nevertheless some inconveniences in the case of those
who feel it a duty to use their reason. One of these
inconveniences is that it is somewhat difficult to know
when the Pope speaks ex cathedra or not. The
practical conclusion seems to be that a Pope speaks ex
cathedra except when it is more convenient to disavow his
utterances, or permit them to be forgotten. In the present
case it is apparently desirable that the definite decisions
given by Hadrian I. and Leo III. on an important question
concerning the faith, as well as the deference paid by the
former to the voice of an Oecumenical Council, should be
disavowed, or allowed to drop into oblivion. For Mcolaus I.,
when in controversy with Photius, Patriarch of Constant!
nople in 867-8, was accused by the latter of teaching
authoritatively the doctrine of the Double Procession.1 In

1 This controversy is one in which we can sympathize with neither
party. Photius, though a man of learning and ability, had been.

THE HOLY SPIRIT. 257

878 John VIII., in the desire of reconciliation with the East,
once more expressed his willingness to remove the obnoxious
words. At last, in 1014, Benedict VIIL, in deference to
the wishes of the German Emperor, Henry II.,1 permitted
the Filioque to be once more recited in the Nicene Creed,
and so the custom gradually spread throughout the West.
This high-handed proceeding, together with the claims of
Rome to universal dominion, compelled the East peremp
torily to disown the Papal authority; and in 1054, during
the Patriarchate of Michael Cerularius, the Papal legate
laid an excommunication on the altar of the Church of
St. Sophia at Constantinople, and the relations thus broken
off have never been resumed.

So matters remained for centuries. The attention of the
leading men of the Reformation period was too much taken
up with domestic questions to allow them to give much
thought to the then down-trodden and insignificant East.
Constantinople had but lately (1453) fallen into the hands
of the Turks, and it seemed doubtful at that time whether
the Eastern Church could possibly survive such a catas
trophe. The Reformers, therefore, accepted the Creed as it
had come down to them, though our best divines have
always admitted that the addition to the Creed was made
without proper authority.2 The revolt, however, which
took place in 1870 against the Vatican decrees, affirming
the infallibility of the Pope, has given a new turn to affairs.
The Conference at Bonn in 1875, under the presidency of

intruded into the patriarchal chair in the place of Ignatius, who had
been treated with great cruelty and unfairness. On the other hand
Nicolaus I., on being asked to use his influence in favour of right and
justice, demanded to be recognized as an infallible judge.

1 In other words, the spiritual head of the Church yielded to the
pressure put upon him by a secular potentate to reverse the decisions
of his predecessors. The much maligned Cranmer himself can hardly
have done worse. 2 So PEARSON, On the Creed, p. 326.

258 THE CREED.

Dr. Yon Db'llinger, at which a number of distinguished
Eastern, Anglican, and Old Catholic theologians were
present, drew up, after much discussion, a formula of
concord from the works of the great schoolman of the
Eastern Church, John of Damascus. The Westerns dis
avowed the idea of more than one u-px1')', *ne Easterns
allowed, in the language of one of their greatest divines,
that there was a communication of Being from the Son to
the Spirit. This formula has not been officially accepted
by any branch of the Church. But it is noteworthy as
marking the turn of the tide which has consistently run
for centuries in the direction of division. The Old
Catholic Churches, which the rebellion against the Vatican
Council called into being, though not formidable in point
of numbers, are by no means to be despised in their
influence on Christian thought. And in revising the offices
of the Roman Church for their own worship in the
vernacular, the Swiss Christian Catholic Church has struck
out the Filioque altogether from the Nicene Creed, while
the Old Catholics of Germany have bracketed it as an
unauthorized addition. The consequence is that, by means
of the discussions carried on at the International Congresses
of Lucerne and Rotterdam, and in the Revue Internationale,
great progress has been made towards formal reunion between
the Old Catholics and the Orthodox Church. The formula
of concord, however, was intended to meet the case of those
who, like ourselves, had inherited the Filioque clause, and
do not see their way, after so great a lapse of time, to
withdrawing it. The formula in question was adopted after
much discussion on the respective meanings of eKiropevecrOai
and procedere, and was intended to enable Westerns to
explain an addition, which they admit never ought to have
been made, in such a sense as shall not be unacceptable to
the soundest theologians in the East.

THE HOLY SPIRIT. 259

It will be convenient, before going further, to state what
the doctrine of Scripture appears to be upon this point.
First of all, our Lord says that the Spirit proceeds (CK-
Trop€V€To.i) from the Father.1 But He also tells us that one
of the characteristics of the Spirit when He shall appear
shall be the receiving from what is His (CK TOU e/xov A^erou).2
This would almost certainly include the communication of
Being. But the phrase does not assert that the Son is,
in any sense, the ultimate fount of Deity from which
the Spirit flows. Further, as the Holy Spirit is called
the Spirit of God, He is also called the Spirit of
Christ.3 This, again, would seem to imply communica
tion of being. As, however, the Son assumes the
name of Christ simply as man, it may be contended that
only the communication of Christ's human nature is referred
to. But the Spirit is also spoken of as the Spirit of the
Son of God.4 And in this there is no reference to Christ's
Manhood. "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the
Spirit of His Son into your hearts." Clearly, then, here
there is an indication that there is a communication of the
Divine Life from the Son to the Spirit. The same inference
may be drawn from a comparison of Revelation xxii. 1
with John vii. 38, 39. The "river of water of life" can
hardly be any other than the Spirit of God. And it is
further described as "proceeding from (CKTTO/JCVO/ACVOV tic)
the Throne of God and of the Lamb."5 Then, again, if
the Spirit is said, as He frequently is said, to be sent by
God, or sent by the Father, He is also said to be sent by
the Son.6 And when the Holy Spirit is described as the
Spirit of God, since the Son, as well as the Father, is God,

1 John xv. 26. • John xvi. 14.

3 Rom. viii. 9 ; Phil. i. 19 ; 1 Peter i. 11. 4 Gal. iv. 6.
6 See GIBSON, The Thirty-Nine Articles, pp. 211, 212.
6 John xv. 26.

260 THE CREED,

it is clear that a communication of Life from the Son, as
well as the Father, is not excluded. Thus, therefore, while
we are not entitled to say that there are two sources of the
Divine Life, we are not forbidden to teach that the Spirit
receives Life from the Son, as well as the Father. It is
even permissible to believe that the Spirit derives His Life
from the Father through the Son, even as we believe that
the worlds were created by the Father through the Son.
Thus, when in the Creed, as we at present have it, we say
that the Holy Spirit proceeds "from the Father and the
Son," we place no other construction upon the words than
is agreeable to the teaching of the Universal Church. We
do not assert that the Spirit proceeds from the Son in the
same way that He proceeds from the Father. All that we
mean to say is that He shares in the Essence which proceeds
from both.1

It may be asked, Why enter into these deep and mysterious
questions at all, since they are entirely beyond the province
of human reason? The question will be asked, especially
by English laymen, who are impatient of anything in the
shape of theological subtleties. The reply is, that in this
matter we have not only to consider ourselves, but other
people. Our political isolation from other lands may
be a necessity of our position. But we have no right
to maintain any longer the isolation from our brethren in
Christ, which circumstances have forced upon us during
the last three centuries. Eighty millions and more of those
brethren resent the inclusion of the Filioque clause in the
Nicene Creed, as a badge of servitude in the case of a con
siderable portion of their number. They have not forgotten
— it is doubtful if they will ever forget — the way in which
the Pope, with the whole Western Church behind him, tried
to force them to accept his dictum as the price of Western
1 See also what has been said of the Tre/nx'fy^crts, p. 101.

THE HOLY SPIRIT. 261

help when Constantinople was hard pressed by the Turks.
They have not forgotten how, when these hard and unjust
terms were rejected, the Western Church left her Eastern
sister to her fate, and that the consequence was the sub
jection of a vast number of our fellow Christians to four
centuries of hard and degrading slavery under a heathen
conqueror. All the minute and nice distinctions of the
East, we ought also to remember, have not been unfruitful
in practical results. If the West now enjoys the advantage
of definite and accurate conceptions of the great doctrines
of the Trinity and the Incarnation, it is due to the refining
fire of criticism through which the East caused these doc
trines to pass. Shall we not respect a sensitiveness on their
part which is not unreasonable, and labour, as far as possible,
to make it clear to them that if we find it too late now to
revise the language of our Creed, we are, at least, anxious
to convey to them that we mean nothing by it but what
they will cordially approve 1

III. Our next point will be the office of the Holy Spirit.
And this may be summed up under three heads — (1) the
office of the Holy Spirit in creation; (2) the office of the
Holy Spirit before the coming of Christ ; and (3) the office
of the Holy Spirit after His coming.

1. The first point may be briefly dismissed, though it is
not without its importance. We have already seen that
the Father created the worlds through the instrumentality
of the Son.1 We further find that the Holy Spirit was
also engaged in the task, by "brooding over"2 the abyss,
and bringing out of the formless mass the elements of order
and law.3 We may also see His operation in the breathing
the breath of life into man's nostrils, whereby he became a
living soul. And we may draw the inference that as He

1 See p. 135. ~ J"l£D"ttD. Mr. Capron, in his al»le volume on the
Conflict of Truth, suggests the translation *' communicating vibrations
to." 3 Gen. i. 2. Of. Job xxvi. 13 ; Ps. xxxiii. 6 (in the original).

262 THE CREED.

took part in this world's creation, so also He does in its
preservation; that the Spirit, or breath, of God is ever
active in the evolution of phenomena, dwelling in, and
moulding, the visible world, even as He dwells in the living
soul of man, though not, as the Pantheists teach, identified
with either. The Church of Christ has ever carefully
maintained the distinction between the thing created and
Him Who created it.

2. Whether the declaration recorded in Genesis vi. 3 is
intended to imply that God's Spirit, in consequence of man's
sin, ceased to sustain and develop the highest part of man's
threefold organization of body, soul, and spirit, and allowed
it to degenerate, in all but certain special cases, into a mere
rudimentary organ, without any real activity or energy,
may — and probably will — be questioned. It is, however,
certain that in the ages before Christ, the spiritual condition
of the great mass of men — even of those who lived under
the patriarchal and Mosaic dispensations — was by no means
a highly developed condition. The work of the Holy
Spirit, then, before the coming of Christ, was confined to
keeping alive such a rudimentary sense of God's care and
providence, and such a rudimentary consciousness of sin,
as could be maintained when the reconciliation between
God and man had not as yet been effected.1 This function,
fulfilled by the Holy Spirit, assumed two main forms. The
sense of the Divine care and protection was chiefly sustained
by prophecy, and the consciousness of sin was sustained by
the giving of a Law, and by the witness of conscience — also
kept alive by the prophets — to the true character of the
institutions which God had given.

(a) The value of prophecy may be summed up in the
fact that it pointed forward to a coming Deliverer. The

1 I am indebted to Professor Bonuey for the following comment :—
"There has been a spiritual as well as a physical evolution, the
environment playing the same part in each."

THE HOLT SPIRIT. 263

progress of criticism has shown that a good deal of the
mystic language of the prophets cannot be proved to
refer to any events but those of their own time; and the
attempt, once so universal, to put strained interpretations
on prophetic utterances, must be abandoned. Nevertheless,
it is perfectly true that the Holy Ghost "spake by the
prophets." As St. Peter tells us, we have a "sure word
of prophecy,"1 and "holy men of old spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost." The appeal throughout the
New Testament, sanctioned by our Blessed Lord Himself,
is constantly made to the prophets of the older covenant.2
It will be found convenient, however, to disregard all minor
utterances, and to fix our attention on certain main prophetic
declarations, which the strongest efforts of the destructive
criticism have failed to evacuate of their force. First, there
is the striking declaration of Genesis iii. 15, which even
later German criticism has assigned to "the oldest book
of Hebrew history," and in which the criticism of the
future will probably see a tradition handed down from
the most remote antiquity, that the "seed of the woman"
should some day "bruise the serpent's head." Next we
have the promise made unto Abraham, and repeated over
and over again to his descendants, that in him "all the
families of the earth should be blessed."3 Then, again,
we have the prophecy uttered by Moses, that a prophet like
unto himself — that is to say, the founder of a system of doc
trine and practice — should be raised up to Israel from among
his brethren.4 Side by side with this we find the declaration
of Balaam, which appears to have been circulated, not only
among the Jews, but among surrounding Eastern nations.5

1 2 Peter i. 19, 21. As the context shows, St. Peter was referring
to Old Testament prophecy.

2 See St. Matthew, passim, "that it might be fulfilled/'

3 Gen. xii. 1-3 ; xvii. 6-8, &c.

4 Deut. xviii. 15, 18. 5 Numb. xxiv. 17.

264 THE CREED.

All these prophecies, whatever the date at which they were
uttered, were, at least, uttered before the publication of the
Christian scheme. Coming down the stream of time, we
must not fail to note the prophecies which predict an
"everlasting" throne to David — prophecies which, if they
do not refer to Christ, have been signally falsified, but
which, if the statements in the New Testament are not
directly contrary to fact, have been as signally fulfilled.1
Parallel with these are the prophetic utterances of the
Psalmist regarding the humiliation of Christ, which, unless
the testimony of eye-witnesses does not deceive us, have
been fulfilled to the very letter.2 Then we have the
remarkable prediction of that humiliation in Isaiah liii.,
which the ingenuity of modern criticism has exhausted
itself in endeavouring to refer to someone or something
else, and has utterly failed in the attempt. Then comes the
striking prediction of Jeremiah, of a time when the law
of God would cease to be written in a code, but would
be engraven in the heart and conscience of mankind.3 A
no less important prophecy is found in Ezekiel, which, even
if we are forbidden, as the critics would forbid us, to see in
Ezekiel xl.-xlviii. a vision of the future spiritualization of
the Law, cannot well be interpreted of anything else but the
religion of Jesus Christ. I refer to Ezekiel xxxvi. 25-28,
in which there is a clear allusion to the dispensation of the
Spirit, which was inaugurated " when the day of Pentecost
was fully come." With this may also be associated another
prophecy in chapter xxxiv., which speaks not obscurely of
a covenant of peace, to be inaugurated by the Son of David,
even Jesus Christ. The well-known passage in Daniel not
only states distinctly the object of Christ's coming, "to
make reconciliation for iniquity," and to "cause the" ancient

1 e.g., 2 Sam. vii. 12-10 ; Ps. Ixxxix. 36, 37.

2 e.g., Ps. xxii, 18 ; Ixu , 21. 3 Jer. xxxi. 31-34.

THE HOLY SPIRIT. 265

"sacrifice and oblation to cease," but it fixes so accurately
the date of His coming, that, as we have already seen,1 the
whole East was ablaze with expectation at the very moment
when Christ's Gospel was proclaimed.2 We may refer once
more to the prophecy of Haggai, that the glory of the
second Temple should exceed that of the former,3 and con
nect it with that of Malachi, that the Lord should " suddenly
come to His Temple," and that He should be the " Sun of
Righteousness," Who should "arise, with healing in His
wings," and should " purify the sons of Levi," so that they
might " offer to Jehovah an offering in righteousness."4
Such, in brief — though it may be almost indefinitely ex
panded — is the witness of the Spirit of prophecy, which
kept alive, in the darkest days, the hope that a Redeemer
would "come to Zion," and that the "ransomed of the
Lord should return" thither "with songs and everlasting
joy upon their heads"; that they should "obtain joy and
gladness," and that "sorrow and sighing" should "flee
away."5

(b) We have next to consider the means provided for
keeping alive the witness of conscience under the older
covenants. In the earliest days there was no organized
system of moral teaching. The conscience of mankind,
though as yet undeveloped, was certainly at work in
primitive ages. The account of the Fall, whether we
regard that account as literal or figurative, unquestionably
recognizes a voice of God speaking to the heart of man.
Primitive man and woman, we find from the narrative of the
Fall, were not unacquainted with self-reproach and shame.6
The conscience of the first murderer was still more deeply
stirred by those feelings.7 But the tendency of the vast
increase of crime among mankind was to deaden the voice

1 Seep. 119. 2 Dan. ix. 24-27 ; also vii. 13, 14. 3 Hag. ii. 8.
4 Mai. iii. 1-3 ; iv. 2. 5 Is. xxxv. 10. 9 Gen. iii. 8, 10.

7 Gen. iv. 13, 14.

266 THE CREED.

of conscience. Henceforth we hear but little of its influence,
save among the members of the chosen race. A dull,
unutterable dissatisfaction with things as they were, some
times flashing up into fierce indignation, and as often
sinking into blank despair, appears to have settled down
upon the races of mankind, until the truth began gradually
to radiate forth from those who enjoyed the blessings of
revelation. But in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their
descendants, it would appear that the Spirit had not ceased
to strive. Something like the sensitiveness to the voice of
that inward monitor, possessed in these days by every
Christian who does not purposely stifle it, seems to have
been theirs. When the Law had been given by Moses, a
more distinct manifestation of the inward voice was
possible. Henceforth there were " commandments, statutes,
and judgments" to which to appeal, and a sense of sin was
aroused in those who disobeyed them. The warnings and
threatenings recorded in the Book of Deuteronomy were
intended to sharpen this sense of responsibility; and on
that ground all subsequent appeals and censures were
based. The angel at Bochim,1 the subsequent prophetic
rebukes under the Judges,2 the arraignment by Samuel
of assembled Israel,3 all show the value of Israelite in
stitutions in informing and developing the power of
conscience. It may be remarked, in passing, that the
Jewish and Christian systems appear almost unique in
the possession of an order of men whose business it was
to appeal "to the Law and to the Testimony,"4 and thus
to arouse a sense of sorrow for past guilt, and a desire for
amendment. The monarch on his throne was sternly
confronted by the words, " Thou art the man," and
compelled to utter the confession, "I have sinned against

1 Judges ii. 1-5. 2 Judges vi. 7-10 ; x. 11-14.

3 1 Sam. xii. 4 Isa. viii. 20.

THE HOLY SPIRIT. 267

Jehovah." 1 And the whole nation repeatedly stood at the
bar of God's judgment, as prophet after prophet, from Isaiah
to Malaclii, contrasted the righteous Law of God with the
conduct of those to whom that Law had been given.2 The
prophetic office, under the old dispensation, must not be con
founded with that of the priests. The duty of the latter
was the formal one of carrying out the prescribed ritual.
We never find Aaron and his descendants undertaking the
moral instruction of God's people. Only three times do we
find the priestly and prophetic office combined — under
Samuel, under Jeremiah, and under Ezra. In the case
of the former there is ground for believing that the
priestly office, for some reason or other, was in abeyance,
and that its duties were discharged by Samuel the Prophet
until the High Priest's functions could be revived.3 In the
case of Ezra we find that civil functions, as a temporary
governor, were assigned to him by the Persian monarch;
and, moreover, the return from the Captivity was a time
when the Jews had become profoundly impressed with the
truth that the performance of the ceremonial of the Law
was valueless in God's sight without the practice of its
moral precepts. Only once in Jewish history do we find
the High Priest withstanding the monarch to his face, and
that was not on a question of conduct, but of ritual
observance.4 Another point must not be omitted, the

1 2 Sam. xii. 7.

2 No more typical example of the nature of those rebukes can be
found than in the opening chapters of Isaiah, where the principle is
enforced that even obedience to the letter of God's commandments is
valueless in His sight, unless their spirit is borne in mind. Of. 1 Sam.
xv. 22 ; Jer. vii. 22, 23 ; Hos. vi. 6 ; Micah vi. 6-8.

3 I have given my reasons for this conclusion in Lex Mosaica,
pp. 263 sqq.

4 2 Chron. xxvi. 18. Zechariah the son of Jehoiada, however (if
he were the High Priest, as seems probable), denounced the idol-
worship of Jehoash. See 2 Chron. xxiv. 20.

268 THE CREED.

(/radical growth in definiteness and elevation of the
testimony of the prophets to the true character of
the moral principles enshrined in the Law. It is true
that our conceptions of the nature and the progress of this
growth have been thrown into much confusion by recent
theories on the evolution of Mosaic institutions. It is
not our place to anticipate here the verdict of modern
criticism. But we may venture -to record our conviction
that the Scripture records, as they stand, enable us to
arrive at a more consistent and coherent conception of
that development, than one which inverts the Scripture
order.1 In the one we have, first, the institutions them
selves, and then their gradual expansion and spiritualization.
In the other we have an unknown and undescribed germ
of institutions to come, and, after a course of development
not very clearly defined, we arrive at last at the institutions
themselves in their complete form, as well as at their spiritual
application to the moral needs of man. The former view
derives support from the fact that it corresponds precisely
to the phenomena of moral and religious development in
the Christian Church. But whatever theory of development
we adopt, all Christians are agreed that previous to the
coming of Christ there was a progressive education of man,
and that in this education, the work of the prophetic order
was a most important factor. Thus, alike in announcing the
coining of the Deliverer, and in quickening man's sense of
his need of deliverance, the Holy Spirit of God "spake
by the prophets." But the prophet derived his mission
from no system of human descent or human appointment,
but simply from the voice of the Spirit within. That voice
might be, and often was, simulated by impostors.2 In that
case the only appeal was to the verifying faculty possessed
by every man who exercised aright the powers he had
received from God, or to the miraculous attestation which

1 Cf. BAXTER, Sanctuary and Sacrifice, pp. 37-42.

2 1 Kings xxii. 11 ; Jer. xxviii. 1-4.

THE HOLY SPIRIT. 269

God Himself was often pleased to give to the word of
His servant.1 And so the Light of God's truth was handed
down through the ages. The " word of prophecy," whether
in foretelling things to come, or in throwing a Divine light
on the things that we.ro, was a "sure word." No genuine
prophecy was, or could be, of any "private interpretation,"
but "holy men of old spake as they were moved by the
Holy Ghost."2

3. We have, lastly, to deal with the work of the Holy
Spirit under the new Covenant. That work has been
specially defined as sandijication. The members of the
Christian Church, we are repeatedly told, are "called to
be saints,"3 i.e., holy persons — persons who are to endeavour
to purify themselves from the pollutions of the world, and
to conform themselves to the Image of Him Who has
redeemed them, as displayed to the world in His Life as
Man.4 "As He Who hath called you is holy, be ye also
holy in all manner of conversation."5 The Spirit of God,
called indiscriminately in Scripture the Spirit of holiness,
or the Holy Spirit, is the instrument by which this work
is performed in us.6 Thus more than once our sanctification
is called "sanctification of the Spirit," which clearly means
sanctification through His operation.7 Nor is this sanctifica
tion simply accomplished by His bringing to our minds the
teaching and example of Christ, though this, unquestionably,

1 Jer. xxviii. 17. 2 2 Pet. i. 21.

3 Rom. i. 7, as well as the opening of St. Paul's other Epistles.

4 1 Cor. xi. 1 ; 1 Thess. i. 6. 5 1 Peter i. 15 ; cf. 2 Peter ii. 11.
6 Bishop PEAILSON (On the Creed, p. 326) gives us a salutary caution

here. "Now, when I speak of the office of the Holy Ghost, I do not
understand any ministerial office or function, such as that of the
created angels is. ... But I intend thereby whatsoever is attributed
to Him peculiarly in the salvation of man, as the work wrought by
Him, for which He is sent by the Father and the Son." [OitiGEN, DC
Principiis, I. iii. 5, has a striking passage on the co-operation of all
three persons of the Trinity in the work of our salvation. Cf. p. 89.]
7 2 Thess. ii. 13 ; 1 Peter i. 2.

270 THE CREED.

is included in His Work.1 But our sanctification is brought
about by His communication to us of the Life of the Eternal
Son. This view of the operation of the Spirit in 'the work
of our salvation has been very much kept in the background
for centuries. By the majority it is but dimly perceived
even now. Few theologians, until very lately, have
definitely and clearly laid it down as a necessary basis
alike of Christian dogma and Christian morals. It is not,
indeed, directly asserted in the Scriptures. But it is
obviously implied in some very crucial passages in the
New Testament. That Christ is the New Man, the
Second Adam, the second source of human life to the
whole human race, is now clearly grasped by the majority
of our authorized teachers ; and we know that by this
new Life alone are we enabled truly to live. But by what
instrumentality is that Eternal Life imparted 1 The answer
is, by the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit. "He that
hath the Son hath the life," no doubt. But the Son is
pleased to communicate that Life to us by His Spirit. He
is not only "the Lord," but the "Life-giver." Even when
that Life is first communicated to us, it is by the Spirit
that it is done. What in theological terminology is termed
"grace," is spoken of in the New Testament as the in
dwelling of the Spirit.2 We are "born" (or begotten) "again
by water and the Spirit ;"3 If Jesus Christ saves us " by
His mercy," it is by means of "a font of regeneration"
(second birth or begetting) "and renewal by the Holy

1 John xiv. 26.

2 Canon BRIGHT, in his Lessons from the Lives of Three Great
FdtJicfs, p. 163, says that the term " infusion of grace" is "merely
a convenient theological expression for the Personal action of the
Divine Paraclete." The convenience may be doubted. It is surely
not a little ^convenient to throw into the shade in this way what
ought to be brought out into the fullest light.

8 John iii. 5.

THE HOLY SPIRIT. 271

Ghost."1 If the result of our having been baptized in-to
the Body of Christ is such that, in a sense, the
members of that Body are identified with the Personality
of the Source of its renewed life,2 it is "by one Spirit"
that this is done.8 If we have access to the Father through
Jesus Christ, it is, once more, "by one Spirit" that this
access is obtained. Even the offering of the human life
of Christ upon the Cross was, in some mysterious way,
made in union with the operation of the Divine Spirit 4 —
so far-reaching is the result of the truth that it is One Life
which is common to all the Three Persons of the Blessed
Trinity — so deep the inward unity, that what is done by
each is, nevertheless, in some way that transcends our
capacities, done by all. And so He sets His seal to the
Purpose of the Father, and the Mission of the Son, by
bringing the hearts of men into conformity witli that
Purpose and that Mission. At first simply as the "earnest"
of what is to come, but afterwards in a degree ever
increasing according to the measure of our faith, He
fills each believer "with the fulness of God."5 All the
gifts of our restored moral nature come from Him.6 It
is He Who delivers us from the bondage of the flesh,
which brings about corruption, and translates us into
the glorious liberty of the children of God.7 Thus He
assures us of our Divine Sonship, and the Divine in
dwelling, and witnesses in our spirit that Ave are the
children of God.8 The unutterable and unuttered groan-
ings of the anguished human soul, while as yet it is
scarcely able to realize the blessed hopes to which it lias
become an heir, are also His work.9 He grants us an insight

1 Titus iii. 5. 2 " So also is Christ." 3 1 Cor. xii. 13.

4 Heb. ix. 14. I cannot see, with some commentators, how
Christ's human spirit can be regarded as "eternal."

5 Eph. iii. 16-19. 6 Gal. v. 22. ? Rom. viii. 21.
8 Rom. viii. 16. 9 Rom. viii. 26.

272 THE CREED.

into the Divine mysteries into which His Divine Essence
enables Him to penetrate.1 Even our intellect is exalted
by His illumination. For by Him arc revealed things
which the natural (or rather psychic) man is unable to
priM'ive.2 And if the things of Divine Kevelation are
made clear to us, it is by His operation. He enables us
to strip off the husk and penetrate to the kernel. He
delivers us from bondage to the letter, and translates us
into the freedom which He alone can give. ISTo longer
subject to a code of written regulations, "Thou shalt" or
"Thou shalt not," the illuminated intellect and heart of
man perceives at a glance the path of duty. The ancient
statutes remain as a witness to the truth, to prevent us
from mistaking the spirit of licence for the Spirit of
Freedom. But they are transfigured with a lustre which
is not naturally their own — the Light which streams from
the Face of Christ. That Light is transmitted by His
Spirit to the hearts of those who fain would gaze on Him,
until the face of the believer on earth begins to glow with
a brightness which comes from heaven, and he becomes
conformed more closely, each day and each hour, to the
Image of the Divine Master.8 Nor is this all. Even
the Resurrection for which we hope shall be effected by
the Spirit. He is Life because of Righteousness. And
He shall quicken our mortal bodies by His Divine in
dwelling.4

1 1 Cor. ii. 11. 2 1 Cor. ii. 9-16.

3 Such is evidently the drift of the heart-stirring third chapter of
St. Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians. It must, of course, be
remembered that it is not the actual, but the ideal, condition of man
which is spoken of, in accordance with the constant practice of St.
Paul and St. John; e.g., in Rom. vi. 3-8, 22; Col. iii. 3 ; 1 John
iii. 9. This ideal state of things is largely conditioned in fact by
human infirmity and lack of living faith.

4 Rom. viii. 11.

THE HOLY SPIRIT. 273

All this is summed up in a title which the Spirit shares
with the Son — that of Paraclete.1 Originally meaning one
summoned to our side to aid us, and thence an Advocate,
the Gospel of Christ has expanded its signification. The
Paraclete does not merely plead for us; He enables us to
plead for ourselves. Over and above the conception of the
Divine grace or assistance, which is given to us whenever
we ask it, the word Paraclete suggests to us One who is evei
by our side to give us the aid we need. Nay, He is not
merely by us, He is in us; and by His Presence within,
which moulds our thoughts, our acts, our life, He is re
deeming us from sin, and bringing us into conformity
with the One Sacrifice once offered for the sins of the
whole world. That Sacrifice is first offered by us in will
and desire ; and, by the Father's love, our as yet imperfect
will is taken for the deed, our unconsummated sacrifice
is accepted in consequence of our faith in the Sacri
fice of Christ. Son and Spirit alike dwell in us by faith.
At first they intercede for us in the groans and confessions
of our burdened and struggling souls.2 In the end they
present to the Father the perfect sacrifice of a recon
ciled soul and spirit, irrevocably united to, and inter
penetrated with, the all-prevailing Sacrifice of the Man
Christ Jesus.

A few words Avill be necessary here on the place of the
Sacraments in the communication of Christ's Life to man
kind. That they owe the whole of their efficacy to the
operation of the Holy Spirit, is taught alike by Christ and
by the Church. The principles which underlie the Sacra
ments are laid down in St. John iii. and vi. In the first, the

. l John xiv. 16, 26 ; xv. 26 ; xvi. 7.
2 Romans ix. 26.

274 THE CREED.

regeneration, or begetting anew, which we have seen to be due
to the imparting to each one of us the glorified Humanity
of Christ, is called by our Lord Himself the " regeneration
of water and the Holy Ghost " j l and the Church has ever
considered the gift of the new Life to be the work of the
Holy Spirit. In His teaching concerning the principle
expressed by the other Sacrament, He says, " It is the
Spirit that imparteth life (fwoTroiet) ; the flesh profiteth
nothing."2 And so in the ritual of both East and West the
Invocation of the Holy Spirit upon the bread and wine is
generally believed to be either expressed or implied. But
still, the gift which the faithful partaker receives, through
the operation of the Holy Spirit, in either Sacrament is the
Life of Christ, Human and Divine, Risen and Ascended.
In Baptism the first germ of that priceless gift is conveyed
or assured.3 In the Holy Eucharist the faithful believer is
sustained and nourished by the Life of Christ, imparted to
him in that Sacrament by a process which is likened by
Christ to "eating and drinking His Flesh and Blood." ]t
is not supposed that this sustaining and nourishing virtue
of Christ's Life is imparted by the Eucharist alone. Man
does not "live " even by that " Bread " " alone, but by every
word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God." The

1 John iii. 5. 2 John vi. 63.

3 HOOKER, Eccl. Pol., V. chap. Ivii. 6. God's gifts, however, as
Aquinas says, are not tied to Sacraments. The gift of regeneration
may, for aught we know, in many cases have been conveyed to the
believer before Baptism. In that case Baptism does but ratify the gift.
Hooker's chapters on the Sacraments in relation to the Incarnation
are well deserving of study. (See Book V. chaps, l.-lvii. Ixvii.)
"As our natural life consisteth in the union of the body with the
soul, so our life supernatural in the union of the soul with God."
(Chap. 1.)

THE HOLY SPIRIT. 275

Sacraments proclaim the fact that every Christian must have
received, and must be continually depending upon, Christ
for the support of his spiritual life, Every baptized person,
if he desire the assurance, may be sure that he has been
grafted into Christ; and every partaker of the Bread and
of the Cup, which have been solemnly blessed according to
Christ's ordinance, may be sure that if he have humbly
and heartily desired a share in Christ's glorified Humanity,
the blessing he seeks will not be — has not been — denied.
Thus the two Sacraments are both assurances of the fact
that each believer has been grafted into the One True Vine,
and is a partaker of the life that inhabits it, and " effectual
channels " whereby that life is communicated from the Vine
itself unto every one of its branches." x

One other point remains for us to touch upon — the
informing voice of the Spirit in the Church. Our Lord, in
His discourse concerning the coming Paraclete, and the way
in which He would carry on the work of salvation after
Jesus was ascended into the heavens, said, " When He is
come, He will guide you in all the truth."2 The word here
used — 6&?yrj(m — is worthy of special notice. Not only will
guide, but will lead you along a way. And not only, be it
further observed, into or unto (si's), but in (cv) all the truth.
That is to say, He Who is truth is with the Church from
the beginning. The " truth," as it " is in Jesus," 3 has
been revealed to us by Him in all its fulness. No further

1 Faith, as we have seen (chap, i.), is necessary on the part of the
individual before that life can become practically ours. The blessing
is not appropriated until it is consciously realized. Even such con
scious realization depends upon God for the power to exercise it. But
the determination of the will to exercise that power appears to reside
in ourselves.

3 John xvi. 13. 3 Eph. iv. 2.

276 THE CREED.

revelation of God's Will can ever be needed. Jesus Christ
and His Spirit spake to, and revealed things Divine to, His
holy apostles and prophets.1 But our comprehension of
that revelation is gradual and progressive. This is inevitable
from the nature of things. Man's understanding is im
perfect, his heart corrupted, his will enfeebled. And the
imperfection of each part of his complex being reacts upon
the rest. It stands to reason, therefore, that only by slow
degrees can he attain to the full understanding of the mystery
of God in Jesus Christ. We have, it is true, on the one hand,
an infallible guide, Who will, if we listen to His Voice, pre
serve us from all fundamental or soul-destroying error. But,
on the other, we are incapable as yet of comprehending all He
would say to us. As the Church grows in moral wisdom
and stature, as each humble, sincere, and candid investigator
into things Divine brings his contribution to the general
store of knowledge of God's ways, so does the whole body
take progressive steps in the path of spiritual enlightenment.
The Church must not expect, or pretend, to be able at any
given moment to pronounce an infallible judgment on all
the questions which demand an answer. She must be con
tent to wait until, in God's good time, all shall be made
clear. Meanwhile each one of her members possesses the
inestimable privilege of the indwelling Spirit. Each one,
if he use that gift aright, will be enabled to do something
toward the increase — or, at the very least, the diffusion — of
our comprehension of things unseen. Premature decisions
on difficult or doubtful points are, above all things, to be
deprecated. The Church of one age — the fundamental
principles of the faith being once secured — has no right
to fetter the development of thought in the Church of
another. It is by a "free Spirit " that the Church of God
is to be "stablished."2 "Where the Spirit of the Lord is,
1 Eph. iii. 5. 2 Or "upheld." Ps. li. 12.

THE HOLY SPIRIT, 277

there is liberty." 1 We are freed by the Christian dispen
sation from the bondage of the letter — from articles,
subscriptions, or formulae,2 and, with the reservation already
made, are to look to the power of an inward working which
shall remove all doubts, and clear up all difficulties. Not
that each man can pretend, as some most unfortunately have
done, that all this inward light is given to him individually.
Each member of the body, as has been said, may, if he will
use his powers aright, contribute to the common store.
And to the rest of us is vouchsafed a verifying faculty,
provided we know how to use it, which will enable us to
"test the spirits,"3 and to incorporate each genuine addition
to our knowledge of God's ways in the Church's treasure-
house of doctrine. But this verifying faculty must be used
according to the laws prescribed for it, or it will be of little
use to us. The more completely impatience, and prejudice,
and misrepresentation, and violence, and dogmatism, and
self-sufficiency are replaced by humility, and candour, and
patience, and willingness to look at truth from more than one
side, the more rapid will be the growth of the Church in her
comprehension of the mysteries of God. It may be humbly
hoped that we are on the threshold of a new era in these
matters. It does seem as if men were growing more anxious
to understand one another than they were ; as if the desire
for victory in religious controversy were being replaced by
the search for truth. This is the way which our Lord
Jesus Christ pointed out to us — the only way, it may be
added — in which His Spirit can possibly "guide us in the
truth." "If any man desire to do His Will, he shall know
concerning the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether

1 2 Cor. iii. 17.

2 It is not contended that these can never be useful "for the present
necessity." And of course, from what lias been before said, it will
not be supposed that all Creeds, however ancient and hoAvever funda
mental, are included in this statement. 3 1 John iv. 1.

278 THE CREED,

I speak of Myself."1 The only way to know the Will of
God is to set ourselves earnestly to do it. "If any man
have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His."2 We
must be "rooted and grounded in love" if we desire to
"apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and
length, and depth, and height." We must " know the love
of Christ which passeth knowledge " if we would be " filled
unto all the fulness of God."3

Thus, then, each Person in the Blessed Trinity has His
own special function in the world in which we live. It is
the Father's prerogative to originate, the Son's to reveal,
the Spirit's to effect the Eternal Purpose of God, which
He purposed before the world began. In reference to this,
we may use an illustration which, anterior to the discovery
of the undulatory theory of light, might seem to savour of
Sabellianism, but which now may safely be employed. The
light of the sun may be regarded from a threefold point
of view. There is that light as it subsists in itself, in the
sun; there is the beaming forth (d-jravyaa-fjia) of that light
to illuminate the worlds around ; and there are the effects
of that light, as they are displayed in the phenomena of
the visible world, in the growth of vegetation, and in the
thousand other complex influences exerted by light Avhich
science has made known, and is still making known to us.4
And these last are no mere emanations^ which may be

1 John vii. 17. 2 Rom. viii. 9.

3 Eph. iii. 17-19. It is the want of comprehension of this truth
which is responsible for so much that is painful and perplexing in the
history of the Church.

4 Professor Bonney suggests the following as an alternative : There
is (a) the source of the undulations ; (6) the undulations themselves,
passing through space, and illuminating the material bodies they
meet ; and (c) the effects of the-se undulations on the bodies with
which they come in contact. The undulations cannot be perceived
until they come in contact with a material body. So God could not
be apprehended by us until He became Man.

THE HOLY SPIRIT. 279

resumed at pleasure by the central luminary. They are
actual properties of light itself, which are absolutely neces
sary to a true conception of its nature. So, too, the
prerogatives of origination, communication, and action are
all essential to the true idea of God. Nor, though we
may regard each of them separately, can we dissociate any
one of the three from the other two. Each of them is in
conceivable without the other. It is One Essence which
underlies them all. And so the Christian Church has
ever believed in a Father Who creates, a Son Who
redeems, and a Holy Ghost Who sanctifies,1 and rejoices
in the conviction that by the Will of the Three Persons,
One Very and Eternal God, a "people of His own posses
sion" has been consecrated to His service,2 in " sanctifica-
tion of the Spirit and belief of the truth."3

1 "What dost tliou chiefly leavn in these Articles of thy belief?
First, I learn to believe in God the Father, Who made me and all
the world ; secondly, in God the Son, Who redeemed me and all
mankind ; thirdly, in God the Holy Ghost, Who sanctitieth me and
all the elect people of God." — Church Catechism.

2 Tit, ii. 14 ; 1 Pet. ii. 9.
8 2 Thess. ii. 13.

NOTE. — The heresy of Macedonius, who taught that the Holy
Spirit is not truly and properly God, was condemned at the first
Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381. It is possible, perhaps even
probable, that the clauses relating to the Holy Spirit which are found
in the present Creed were drawn up at that Council.

CHAPTER VII.
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

" I BELIEVE IN ONE CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH ; l I
ACKNOWLEDGE ONE BAPTISM FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS "

SECTION I.

ON THE CHURCH OP CHRIST

FROM the confession of faith in the three Persons of the
Godhead we come to the bearing of those eternal facts
on the condition and history of mankind. The first is the
gathering together of those in whom Christ dwells by His
Spirit into a great society. That society is called the
" Catholic and Apostolic Church."

Our first duty, under this article, will be to ascer
tain the meaning of the word " Church." In Greek it is
J fKKXyvia (Lat. ei'rlcda), which literally means what is
,_ fc**aV called out of something else ; and, therefore, many writers
have explained the word to mean persons called out of
a sinful world. But the word cK/cA^o-ia is used in the
Scptuagint translation of the Old Testament as equivalent
to the Hebrew ^np, which simply signifies an assembly.
And in many other authors it has the simple sense of a
number of persons called together. Tb.erefo.re it may be
best not to insist on the former sense, though it is doubtless
in accordance with the facts, but to regard the word
Church as simply meaning the assembly of faithful .believers
in Christ.2 We have next to inquire what are the charac
teristics of this society. It was described prophetically in

1 The word "holy" (ay lav) is also found in the Nicene Creed, as
recited at the Council of Chalcedon, but is omitted in our present
English Prayer Book, apparently by accident.

2 See PEAKSON'S Note on the meaning of e/c/cX??0ia. Our own
English word Church has been supposed by some to be derived from

280

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 281

the Book of Daniel as "a stone made without hands,"
which would destroy the great world-empires of the
prophet's day, and would establish a kingdom of God in
their stead ; l and whensoever and by whomsoever the Book
of Daniel was written, we have unquestionably before us
in this passage a prophecy which has been fulfilled. Our
Lord Himself speaks of His Church as a Kingdom, and
under many figures, too numerous to mention in an
elementary work of this kind, He has described the
characteristics of the Kingdom whose foundations He was
then laying.2 He has spoken of it as a Kingdom of
Heaven and as a Kingdom of God. These phrases imply,
as indeed He Himself has told us, that it is a Divine
Kingdom, yet not a Kingdom of this world, but one which
was " within us " ; 3 that is to say, it is not so much an
authority which imposes regulations from without, as one
which controls the human conscience by influences from -
within. This is a point of view which the authorities of
the Church have scarcely borne sufficiently in mind ; and
yet it is confirmed by the general tenor of the Christian
Scriptures, which, though they describe Christ as having
come forth from the Father in order to gather together a
society whose fundamental object should be obedience to God,
do not represent Him as imposing on that society a code of
external regulations, but rather as subjugating the hearts..

Kvpiaxosy an adjective formed from xvpios, and by others to be kindred
with circle, and to mean a sacred enclosure. " Kvpios, the Lord, and
that properly Christ, from Avhence KvpiaKos, belonging to the Lord
Christ; ol/cos /cupiaK6s, the Lord's House, from thence Kyriac, Kyrkt
and Church." — PEAHSON, On the Creed, p. 335.

1 Dan. ii. 34, 44.

2 e.g., Matt. xiii. throughout; xviii. 23-35 ; xx. 1-16 ; xxii. 1-14,
&c.

3 Luke xvii. 21, <W6s fywv. This may be translated "among you,"
but the general tenor of the Christian Scriptures supports the other
translation.

282 THE CREED.

and consciences of its members by the power of His. Spirit.
Hie society thus formed is called in the Scriptures the
J,1 Body of Christ." l It is represented as deriving nourish
ment by "joints and bands" from Christ, its Head.2 The
individuals who compose it are called His members.3 Under
a somewhat different figure Christ is described as the
Vine, and the members of His Church as the branches.4
Or, again, the Church is described as a building,
of which Christ is the foundation,5 or as a house or
temple inhabited by Him.6 This close mutual relation
between Christ and His disciples is yet again described
under the figure of a Bridegroom and a Bride.7 These
various figures are used to illustrate the fact that a new
and spiritual life is derived from Christ to every member
of His Church.8 That life is imparted through the agency
of the Holy Spirit.9 It consists in the perfected Jmmanily
of Clirist Himself, spoken of by St. John as His " Flesh
arid Blood ";10 and so closely are the Divinity and Humanity
united in Him, that one Apostle speaks of Christians as
"partaking of the Divine Nature."11 This supernatural life
has a beginning. That is to say, before it can be ours, there
must have been a new birth (or begetting) when it was

1 Eph. i. 23, iv. 12, v. 23, 30 ; Col. i. 18, 24. Cf. also 1 Cor.
xii. 12.

2 Eph. iv. 16 ; Col. ii. 19.

3 Rom. xii. 5 ; 1 Cor. vi. 15, xii. 12 ; Eph. v. 30.

4 John xv. Cf. the "good olive tree," Rom. xi. 17.

5 1 Cor. iv. 11. The Apostles are also, in a subsidiary sense,
spoken of as foundations. See 1 Cor. iv. 10; Eph. ii. 20.

6 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17; 2 Cor. vi. 16 : Eph. ii. 22 ; 1 Tim. iii. 15;
2 Tim. ii. 20, &c.

7 This figure is not confined to the New Testament. See Ps. xlv. ;
Is. liv. 5 ; Jer. ii. 2, iii. 8, 14, 20 ; Ezek. xvi. 8, xxiii. 4, &c. ; and
the Song of Solomon.

8 John iii. 5, vi. 35, 48, 51-58 ; Rom. vi. 23 ; Eph. iv. 15, 16
1 John v. 11, 12, &c., &c.

9 See chap. v. 10 John vi. 51-57. u 2 Peter i. 4.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 283

first imparted. It is, moreover, a continuous life. It has
its means of nourishment : namely — prayer, the study of
God's Will,1 and, above all, the reception of Holy Com
munion. This Body is sometimes identified with Christ
Himself, by virtue of His indwelling in the soul of every
individual member of it.2 For its fundamental character
istic is the interior possession, by each member of it, of the
life of Christ — a possession realized by faith — through
which the Church, or Body of Christ, becomes an organic
whole.3 Each member of that Divine Society receives a
direct and continuous communication of Life from Christ,
and is united in the closest ties of love and brotherhood
with every other member of the Body. It may, therefore,
be described as the aggregate of persons in whom Christ
dwells by His Spirit* We shall naturally, from this point
of view, be prepared to find the Church described as one.

1 Matt. iv. 4. This need not be exclusively confined to the study of
Holy Scripture, but embraces every sincere attempt to ascertain for one
self the Divine mode of dealing with mankind. 3 1 Cor. xii. 12.

3 Canon GORE (Hampton Lectures, p. 219), from this point of view,
calls the Church the " extension of the Incarnation." Several of the
early Fathers have used this expression.

4 It is the feeble grasp people in general have on this fundamental
fact of our religion — the transmission of Christ's life by the Spirit to each
member of the Church (see pp. 166-172) — which leads to such singular
perversions of the language of Scripture as are, unhappily, common
among us. If any ordinary Christian is asked for an explanation, for
instance, of the meaning of the phrase, "eating Christ's Flesh, and
drinking His Blood," he will be found, in many cases, to resort to
the most extraordinary non-natural interpretations of his Master's
language. Some will tell you that it means " belief in the efficacy
of His Sacrifice," or "belief in His Death on the Cross," or "belief
that through His Sufferings and Death we have eternal life," or that
"if we live on Christ by faith we may be said to feed on Him." "We
are told that we "do not literally partake of Christ's Flesh and
Blood " — thus directly contradicting His Words, and those of the
Church Catechism (if by "literally" is meant really) — or that to eat
His Flesh and drink His Blood is to "partake of His Holy Word,

284 THE CREED.

"There is one Body and one Spirit," says St. Paul,1 and he
continually impresses this truth on our minds.2 It is a
direct consequence of the fact that our One Lord, even
Christ, vouchsafes to take up His abode in us. But while
holding fast to this fundamental doctrine, it is necessary to
distinguish between the Church in its ideal, and the Church
in its actual condition. Sufficient attention has not been

and to do all in our power to strengthen our spiritual life." So,
again, we find people substituting " grace" or " strength " for Christ's
own Personal Presence, promised repea.tedly in His Holy Word. All
these explanations have been given to the writer by persons who
had received more or less careful religious training. Of course the
eating of Christ's material Body and Blood is not meant in
St. John vi., nor are we taught that such eating could do us any
good if it had been meant. The feeding on Christ is, of course,
carried on through the spirit of man, not through his physical organs.
(See John vi. 63.) But it is the denial, or evasion, of the fact that
we do truly, really, and literally partake of the Glorified human, and
even of the Divine, Nature of our Ascended Lord, which leads, on
the one hand, to such a lamentably low standard of Christian life,
and, on the other, by a natural reaction, to those carnal and Caphar-
naite conceptions of Christ's Presence in the Eucharist, which tend
to "overthrow the nature of a Sacrament," and to substitute the
idea of a Body of Christ, locally present in the elements, for that of
Christ making a perpetual communication of Himself to the spirit
of man through the various means which He has sanctified for
the purpose. For we cannot, of course, commit ourselves to the
assertion that Christ has no other means than the Sacraments of
conveying Himself to the heart and spirit of man. Such a view
would be in direct conflict with the whole spirit and tenor of Holy
"Writ. But what is meant is that we do really, truly, and literally
receive the Divine Humanity of Christ in our spirits, and that
without such communication to us of the Life of Christ there could
be no salvation. The present age sorely needs the grasp on the
effects of the Incarnation displayed by the great Athanasius and
his contemporaries and successors.

1 Eph. iv. 4.

2 See Rom. xii. 4, 5 ; 1 Cor. xii. 12, 13; Eph. iv. 16; Col. ii. 19;
iii. 15. Also John x. 16, xvii. 20, 23; 1 Cor. i. 10 ; Eph. i. 10, ii.
15, 16, v. 25-30 ; Phil. i. 27 ; iii. 16, &c.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 285

paid to the fact that in the New Testament the ideal con
dition of the Church is usually set forth, whereas in
practice we are compelled to make many deductions from
that sublime ideal on account of human infirmity — of that
" infection of nature which doth remain ; yea, even in them
that are regenerate."1 Ideally, every member of the Church
is united to Christ and to his brethren "in one holy bond
of truth and peace, of faith and charity." "One faith" only
is professed by all — a faith that "worketh by" a perfect
mutual "love." But when we come down to the realities
of life, we find a very different state of things. We
find not only that the Church is "by schisms rent
asunder, by heresies distressed," but that there is no
such thing as perfect union between its members. Even
in the Church of Rome — that particular branch of the
Church in which an external and uniform discipline is
most rigidly enforced as a first condition of membership —
the internal unity postulated by the Saviour's prayer, "that
they may be one, as ^^re are,"2 is very far from being
secured. On the contrary, mutual jealousy, suspicion, and
ill-will between individuals are found to at least as great an
extent in that particular portion of the Church as in any
other.

The promised Unity was no doubt preserved for a
short time when the number of Church members was
small, and their new-born zeal at its height. Then, we

1 Art. IX. In the same way many difficulties have been raised in
consequence of the passages in the New Testan.ent which relate to
the individual in his ideal state. Thus St. John, speaking cf the
believer in his ideal relation to God, says (1 John iii. 9), " Whosoever
hath been begotten of God doeth no sin ... he cannot sin, because
he hath been begotten of God." But when he speaks of our actual
present state he says, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves." (Chap. i. 8.) Cf. also such passages as Rom. vi. 1-11;
Gal. ii. 19, 20, iii. 27 ; Col. iii. 3, 9, 10, &c.

3 John xvii. 22.

286 THE CREED.

read, they who believed were "of one heart and of one
soul,"1 and this unity of spirit was evidenced in the com
munity of goods.2 But as the Church spread to other
lands, the feeling of brotherhood of necessity grew weaker,
and human selfishness soon relaxed the bonds of Christian
love. At the same time, the Christian Church has never
ceased, through all the centuries, in spite of human imper
fection, to be a force making for union among men ; and
never was that force so strongly felt as it is at the present
time. Notwithstanding the inconsistency and indifference
of her nominal members, there have been in every age those
who have honestly endeavoured to preserve "the unity of
the Spirit in the bond of peace." And the earnest and
increasing longing for unity among Christians at the present
time is an evidence that the " One Spirit " is still working
among those who have received the "One Baptism," and
who profess the " One Faith " — the " faith once for all
delivered to the saints" — and that He will bring us all
some day into the "One Fold" of Him Who "is over
all, and through all, and in us all."3 NOT should we
confine our thoughts to a mere ecclesiastical unity. We
should also bear in mind that the more loving, gentle,
considerate spirit which is growing among us — the greater
regard for the rights of the poor and weak — the greater
hatred of cruelty, of brutality, of war — these are signs
of the unifying presence of the Spirit of Christ among us.
And the purer the form of Christianity professed, the more

1 Acts iv. 32. Cf. ii. 44.

2 This is the idea embodied in the words, "the Communion of
the Saints," in the Apostles' Creed, i.e., the fellowship of all who
" profess and call themselves Christians." We cannot enter further
here into the doctrines of modern Christian Socialism, except to
remark that the spirit which dictated that community of goods is as
necessary now as ever it was.

3 Jude 3 ; Eph. iv. 4-6 ; John x. 16.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 287

distinct will be the evidence of that Presence in the mani
festation of a sober, orderly, peaceful, and compassionate
spirit throughout civil society.

The Church again is Holy. Here, again, we must dis
tinguish between the ideal and the real holiness of the
Church. Ideally, every member of the Church is united
by faith to the perfect Humanity of Christ, and is therefore
cleansed from sin; and every thought and imagination of
his heart is brought into subjection to the Will of Christ.
In reality, the weakness of our faith and of our will
prevents each one of us from reaching the level of that
high ideal. It is, no doubt, the goal to which a vast
number of us are tending, but it cannot be said to be the
actual condition into which each one of us has as yet been
brought. The Church here below is the Church militant.
The Church triumphant is yet to be revealed. Absolute
holiness cannot be predicated of any branch of the Church,
or any individual in it, until the struggle with sin is over.
"Called with a holy calling,"1 we certainly all of us are. It
may be hoped that very many of us may be truly described
as striving after holiness. But the Church militant can no
more be described as actually holy than actually one. It can
only be said that as the centuries roll on she is gradually
approaching nearer to the ideal which has been set before
her in the life and teaching of her Lord. It is somewhat
strange that so many have supposed that the unity of the
Church is more necessary to be realized in practice than its
holiness. That one faith was handed down from the very
first, contained in the Christian Scriptures, and formulated
in the Christian Creeds, is undoubtedly the fact. But that
it is any more necessary for the Church built on that faith
to have maintained her external unity than her internal
purity, is a proposition which seems hardly self-evident.
1 2 Tim. i. 9. Cf. Eph. iv, 1, 4 ; Phil. iii. 14 ; Heb, iii. 1.

258 THE CREED.

The divisions of the Church are no more incompatible
with her existence than are the sins of the Church. Of
both of them it may be said, "An enemy hath done
this." (Matt. xiii. 28.) Yet the Church, though marred
by his work, is not destroyed. Of the Church of
Christ as a whole, it may be said, as St. Paul said of him
self, and as every consistent member of the Church may
also say, that she "counteth not herself yet to have appre
hended, but this one thing she doeth, forgetting the things
that are behind, and stretching forward to the things that
are before, she presseth on toward the goal, unto the prize
of the upward (avco) calling of God in Christ Jesus." l Or
in yet more beautiful words of the same Apostle, she may
be described as "with unveiled face reflecting as in a
mirror the glory of the Lord," and as being "transformed
into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the
influence of the Lord the Spirit."2

Thirdly, the Church is Catholic. In other words, she is
spread throughout the world.3 The " Churches," of which
we frequently read 4 in the New Testament, are the various
portions of the one Church found in various localities. But
there was perfect union and intercommunion between these
bodies. There was no trace within the Apostolic period of
those separate religious organizations in one place which
now call themselves "the Churches." We do not read of
the Petrine, Pauline, Earnabite Churches, nor even of the
Church of the circumcised and the Church of the un cir
cumcised. If the word "Churches" is used, it is used in
a purely geographical sense — the "Churches of Galatia,"
the "seven Churches" of the Apocalypse. Every separate
family, no doubt, was considered in a sense as a Church.5

1 Phil. iii. 14. 2 2 Cor. iii. 18.

3 Of. "The holy Church throughout all the world. "—TV Deuin.

4 e.g., Acts ix. 31 (A.V.) ; xv. 41 ; xvi. 5.

5 1 Cor. xvi. 19 ; Col. iv. 15 ; Philemon 2.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 289

But such a "Church" was not in any sense a separate
body. There is, and can be, only one Church, which is
Christ's Body, which lie loves, and for which He gave
Himself up.1 And that Church is the aggregate of the
Christians throughout the world, who believe the truth
which He has taught, enter the Church by the means
which He has ordained, and set themselves to fulfil the
conditions which He has imposed.2 This, and this alone,
can be called the Catholic Church of Christ.

Fourthly, the Church is Apostolic. That is to say, it was
founded by the Apostles,3 and it still retains in form, as well
as in principle, the impress of their teaching and discipline.
In the earliest mention we have of the Church, we are told
that those who believed the word preached by the Apostles,
"continued steadfastly in their doctrine and fellowship."
And in later times we find conformity to the Apostolic
model a note of the true Church. The witness of the sedes
Apostolicafit or Churches founded by the Apostles, was in
variably appealed to in early days as a guarantee for the
purity of the faith. The reason of this was that copies of
the Scriptures were at that time, for various reasons, few in
number. And the witness of the community to the doctrine
it had been taught was, therefore, more accessible than the
writings of Apostles and Apostolic men.

There can be no doubt that a certain form or norm of
truth was handed down in the Church from the very first,
and that this ultimately took the shape of the Catholic
Creeds.4 St. Paul exhorts Timothy to " have" or "hold a
pattern of the health-giving words " he had received.5 And

1 Eph. v. 25.

2 Sanctification of the Spirit, and belief in the truth, are predicate^
of the members of the Church by St. Paul. 2 Thess. ii. 13.

3 Eph. ii. 20-22 ; iii. 4, 5 ; Rev. xxi. 10, 14. Also 2 Cor. iii. 10

4 See chap. i. 6 2 Tim. i. 13.

290 THE CREED.

St. Jude exhorts us to " contend earnestly for the faith which
was once for all delivered to the Saints."1 But when the
prophecy of the "perilous times" to come was fulfilled, and
when men began to teach spurious doctrines in the place of
the truth of Christ, it became necessary to draw a line of
distinction between the various bodies who " named the name
of Christ " — between those who preached the pure deposit of
Christian truth, and those who corrupted it. Thus grew up
the distinction between " Catholic " and " heretic " — between
those who held the faith of universal Christendom, and those
who taught erroneous and strange doctrines.2 The most
satisfactory definition of the word Catholic is that which is
given by Vincentius of Lerins in his " Commonitorium,"
which was written about the year 434. There, in consequence
of the anxiety widely felt about the opinions diifused on the
authority of the great St. Augustine, he points out that many
of these opinions were altogether novel, and that, therefore,
whether reasonable or otherwise in themselves, they could
not possibly be taught as the doctrines of the Church. That
only, he continued, which has been taught " ubique, semper,
et ab omnibus,"3 could fairly be represented as Catholic truth.
As years rolled on, the tradition of the Apostolic Churches
naturally receded into the background, and the witness of
the Apostolic writings themselves, as the number of copies
multiplied, took their place. To us, at this distance of
time from the foundation of the Christian Church, Scripture

1 Jude 3.

2 The use of the word " Catholic," as opposed to " Protestant," it
may be well to remind the reader, is of comparatively modern date.
It originated in the sixteenth century, at the Reformation, when certain
persons pt^otested their orthodoxy as against resolutions adopted at a
certain diet of the German Empire. But in earlier times the word
"Catholic " was opposed to " heretic " — and the latter word applied to
a number of sects which held the most anti-Christian views concerning
the Person and Work of Christ. 3 First Commonitorium, chap. ii.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 291

has become tradition. It is obviously impossible for any
authentic tradition relating to the essential principles of the
Christian faith to have remained unwritten for eighteen
centuries and a half. Accordingly, the Council of Trent
binds those who accept it to hold and teach nothing which
is not based on " the unanimous consent of the Fathers." l
Such "unanimous consent" is, of course, easily and frequently
alleged. But it is naturally, also, extremely difficult to
establish. It will be found, on examination, that anything
like unanimous consent on the part of the Fathers cannot
be adduced on behalf of any doctrine which is not explicitly
taught in Scripture and in the Creeds. That of late years
too little attention has been paid, in the Reformed com
munions, to the traditional interpretation of Scripture in
the Universal Church, is, however, true ; and to this we
must largely attribute the doctrinal errors into which many
of the Reformed Churches have fallen, and their consequent
inability, as a rule, to make head against the Church of
Rome. This was not the fault of the leaders of the
Reformation themselves, who were by no means desirous
of undervaluing the importance of the appeal to primitive
testimony. But their successors have too frequently ignored
the voice of the Holy Spirit in the Church, and have
claimed instead a plenary power for each person to interpret
Holy Scripture for himself. The result has been much
disorder and confusion, which can only be remedied by a
recurrence to the principles of Apostolic order, as embodied
in such Apostolic declarations as "none of us liveth unto
himself, and none dieth unto himself";2 " and so ordain I in
all the Churches " ;3 "we have no such custom, neither the

1 Fourth Session, on the publication and use of the Sacred Books.

2 Rom. xiv. 7. 3 1 Cor. vii. 17.

292 THE CREED.

Churches of God";1 " hold the traditions which ye were
taught";2 "though we, or an angel from heaven, should
preach unto you any Gospel other than that which we
preached unto you, let him be anathema."3 We must,
therefore, as members of an " Apostolic " Church, resist all
attempts to impose, as essential to salvation, any doctrines
which do not come to us authorized by the definite statements
of Scripture, and the unanimous consent of the Fathers.

The Church of England has ever rested her system on
this principle. Nothing whatever, according to her view,
can be regarded as an essential of the faith which has not
been insisted upon as such from the very first, and wherever
the Christian Church is known. No doctrine, however
widely received, no practice, however general, can claim to
be Catholic — i.e. universal — and therefore binding on the
conscience of a Christian man, unless it has been expressly
taught, enjoined, or practised by the apostles of Christ.
And we have no other means of ascertaining what was
originally so taught, enjoined, or practised, but the Christian
Scriptures.4 If it were necessary, as in the fourth century
of the Christian era it was found necessary, to define more
carefully the articles of the Christian Creed, it was to
Scripture and early tradition that the appeal was made.6

1 1 Cor. xi. 16. 2 2 Thess. ii. 15. * Gal. i. 8.

4 Some have supposed that if a doctrine or practice has been
universally received by Christendom at any particular period, it
becomes thenceforward a binding law on the whole Church. But
here, again, there would seem to be some confusion of thought. The
whole Church of any particular age is, of course, the Catholic Church
of that age. But it is not the whole Catholic Church. For a practice
to be binding on the conscience of Catholics, it must be shown to have
been held and taught by the Catholic Church of all ages.

5 TO. dpxoua eOrj Kpareiru, was the cry of the Nicene Fathers. And
one cause of the prolonged resistance to their decrees was the use of
the word Homoousion, which is not found in Scripture.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 293

A new word (e.g. Homoousion) might be used in order
better to define an old truth. But the Church had no
power to decree new doctrines.1 Her duty was simply to
guard the deposit of the faith. It was not until the
unhappy schism between the East and West that a portion
of the Church took upon itself to add to the Christian
Creed, and thus to bring about the disruption of Christen
dom.2 It does not come within our province to demonstrate
the fact, but it has been shown again and again, since the
breach between the Church of England and the Pope, that
the Churches in communion with the See of Rome, have

1 Canon GOKE, in his Fourth Barapton Lecture, maintains the
view taken above.

2 Among the doctrines which Rome has at various times added to
the faith of Christendom, are Transubstantiation ; the worship of
images and relics ; Purgatory, and the doctrine of Indulgences con
nected therewith ; the doctrine that there are neither less nor more
than seven Sacraments ; the definitions of the Council of Trent on
Justification ; the worship of the Blessed Virgin ; and, during the
nineteenth century, the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception of
the Blessed Virgin, and of the Infallibility of the Pope. Among
the practical abuses which need reformation are the Divine honours
paid to the Blessed Virgin ; the extent to which the Invocation of
Saints is carried ; the encouragement of strange cults, such as that
of the Sacred Heart, and of pilgrimages to places where the Virgin
Mary is said to have appeared ; the countenance given to belief in
the virtue of amulets, medals, and charms, such as the Scapular ;
and the superstitions connected with Masses for the Dead. The
Eastern Church regards the decrees of the Second General Council
of Nicaea, A.D. 787, as binding upon Catholics ; and those decrees
were certainly generally accepted in the Church for some centuries
previous to the Reformation. But they were condemned in the West,
at the Council of Frankfort, A.D. 794. And even if they were
generally accepted during the worst periods of the Church's history,
they certainly do not answer to the Canon of Vincentius, "quod
ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus." For the worship, as distinct
from the use, of images and pictures is distinctly condemned in
Scripture, and had no countenance for the first six centuries of the,
Christian era.

294 THE CREED.

repeatedly added doctrines to their creed which have no
authority either from the words of Christ, or of those
whom He commissioned to teach His Gospel, and are thus
guilty of teaching a new religion.1

So far, then, as the Koman Church recites, as she still
recites, the Creed of universal Christendom at her altars,
she has a right to the title of Catholic. But so far as she
has added to the faith doctrines which she has received no
commission from her Lord to teach, she must be branded
as heretical.2 What the duty of those is who live in
Koman Catholic countries, and cannot accept her unau
thorised additions to the faith, it is not our province to
decide. Some have submitted to authority unrighteously
and unjustly exercised, and pray and wait for better times.
Others, known as " Old Catholics," after enduring the yoke
unwillingly for centuries, have at length adopted an attitude
of active resistance, and are maintaining a position such as
is defined by the Canon of Vincentius, mentioned above.3
For ourselves, it is clearly our duty to resist, as energeti
cally as possible, the action of those who are pressing upon
our people these unauthorised additions to the faith on the

1 For books on the Roman controversy, see note at end of section iv.
of this chapter.

2 Heresy means the deliberate choice of opinions, instead of the
reception of them on authority. This authority, in our case, is the
authority of Christ and the inspired first preachers of His doctrine.
The true Catholic faith, on this point, is that while the Church may
define the faith, she may not add to it.

3 In one particular case an Anglican Archbishop and two of his
Suffragans have thought it their duty, at the request of a body of
men who had left the Church of Rome on conscientious grounds, to
consecrate a Bishop to take the supervision of these men. The case
referred to is the consecration in 1894 by Archbishop Plunket and
two other Irish Bishops, of Senor Cabrera to be Bishop of the Spanish
Reformed Church. About the wisdom and propriety of this step
there is much difference of opinion.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 295

authority, first of a section of the Catholic Church, and
afterwards on that of a single Bishop. We must do so
because the course such men are taking leads, in the end,
to a reaction by which the faith itself is rendered impos
sible to many minds. But it may seem strange to some to
be told that what are termed the " Orthodox " English Non
conformists, and possibly some foreign Protestants, are, as far
as the essence of the faith is concerned, distinctly Catholic.
They may have an unhappy and most groundless prejudice
against the Creeds as "sectarian formularies." But they
accept the doctrines which those Creeds enshrine, namely,
the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement — in short,
all the main truths of the Catholic faith.1 Their position
from the point of view of ecclesiastical discipline will be
considered when we come to deal with the organization of
the Church. But by what errors and additions soever their
teaching may be disfigured, neither they nor the Church of
Rome can be represented as not holding the Catholic faith,
as defined in the Catholic Creeds.2 [For ourselves, we

1 Their view of the article, "the Holy Catholic Church," may be
defective. But it does not appear directly to contradict any proposi
tion which that Church has formally decreed or accepted.

a These remarks include the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland.
But they can only be applied to Continental Protestant bodies with
very great reserve. The fundamental facts of the Gospel, the Trinity,
the Incarnation, and the Atonement are regarded as open questions in
many of these latter. And it is a serious question how far any body
of men can be regarded as teaching Catholic truth in any sense as
long as such questions are left open. A similar tendency is beginning
to be shown among Protestant bodies at home, as the " Down Grade "
controversy shows. Now that the restraint of the Trust Deeds of the
Chapels has been removed, there is no definite guarantee among them
for sound religious teaching. And we may venture to predict that
pious Nonconformists will one day come to see the value of
those "sectarian formularies" which they have been accustomed to
decry.

296 THE CREED.

must continue, as we have done since the Reformation, to
protest against any addition to or subtraction from the faith
handed down from the beginning. We retain our reverence
for Scripture, we accept the ancient Creeds, we protest
against requiring any one to believe any doctrine which is
"not found in Holy Scripture," nor "may be proved
thereby."1]

The question of Apostolic order must be deferred to the
section on the Ministry of the Church. We will proceed
to show that the Church is described in Scripture as a
visible society. That there is an invisible Church, we would
not be understood to deny. But this Church is nowhere
mentioned in Scripture, save in Hebrews xii. 23, where we
read of " the general assembly and Church of the firstborn,
who are enrolled in heaven." The truth is, that the con
ception of an invisible Church, whose members are known
as such to God alone, though indisputable in itself, has
been extended beyond due limits by the theory, largely
held subsequent to the Reformation, that Christian faith
means the personal assurance, on the part of the in
dividual believer, of his own ultimate salvation. As the
correctness or otherwise of this assurance could be known
only to God, and as mankind in general were obviously
incompetent to form an opinion upon it, the idea grew up
that the Church of God was not a visible, but an invisible
society, and that visible congregations of Christians were
only very imperfect and unsatisfactory shadows of the
majestic figure of the "Holy City, New Jerusalem," which
"came down out of heaven from God, made ready as a
bride adorned for her husband."2 On the other hand, as

1 Art. VI. 2 Rev. xxi. 2.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 297

the fact that the possessor of such assurance was destined
to ultimate salvation was one about which there could be
no doubt, it was easy to draw, if not an exact, at least an
approximate, line between those who were, and those who
were not, so destined — between those who were in Christ, and
those who remained apart from Him. Man, it was admitted,
could not pretend to draw that line. Only God could do
this. But it had been draivn. And those who were on
one side of it were regarded as in the invisible and only
true Church, while those who were on the other were
outside it. The traditional view in the Catholic Church
had been of a far less hard-and-fast character. It recognized
everyone as a member of Christ's Church, with whom God's
Spirit had not ceased to plead.1 The excommunicated even
were only cut off from the outward fellowship of the Church,
but not necessarily from all fellowship with Christ. Even
he who had been " delivered over to Satan for the destruc
tion of the flesh" by St. Paul, it was remembered, was

1 There is a striking passage in the treatise of Hippolytus on Christ
and Antichrist (chap, iii), which speaks of persons in the most
varied conditions of spiritual progress as being alike members of
Christ's Church. Clement of Alexandria, in his Pacdagogus, or
Instructor, claims for Christians that they are perfect. But he after
wards (chap. i. 6) explains this perfection not as absolute, but as
consisting in the aspiration after perfection, while certainly the
Instructor seems to contemplate the possibility of members of the
Church being in a somewhat low state of moral and spiritual
enlightenment. Cyprian, too, gives an account of the sins even
of Confessors (i.e. those who had confessed Christ by suffering on
His account] of his day, which is hardly reconcilable with the hard-
and-fast view spoken of in the text. The Scriptures themselves
do not treat persons who are guilty even of serious offences as
outside the pale of the visible Church, except in certain extremely
grave cases. Even so strong a passage as Ephesians v. 5 seems, from
the context, to refer only to those who obstinately persist in the vices
mentioned. Those who were honestly struggling against temptations
to such sins would not, it would seem, be formally separated from the
communion of God's Church.

298 THE CREED.

promptly received back into the Churc.fi, on showing signs
of repentance.1 And, consequently, it was quite possible
for persons to be in the Church who were very far from
leading lives altogether consistent with their profession.2
The Apostolic Church, in fact, contained persons in very
various stages of spiritual development.3 Yet, inconsistent
as their lives were, their membership in the Church, save
in one or two extreme cases, is distinctly recognized.4

Everywhere, however, the Church, as well as those local
bodies which formed part of it, is described as being a visible
society. It was built on the rock of the confession of
Christ.5 To it complaints might be brought, and it is to
"hear" them.6 The "Churches" mentioned in the Acts
of the Apostles, which "had peace," were "confirmed"
and "strengthened" in the faith,7 were obviously visible
communities. So were the "Churches" mentioned in St.
Paul's Epistles,8 as well as in the Apocalypse.9 So un
questionably were those to which St. Paul's Epistles were
addressed. It would have been impossible for any one of
them to have been written to a community, of which the
members were not publicly known. Nor is there any reason
for doubting that the "Church" of which we read in the
Epistles, is any other than the aggregate of the various
local Churches. There is not a line in Holy Scripture to
suggest that the Church (or assembly — eK/cA^o-ta) which is
spoken of as "Christ's Body" differs in anything but
extent from the Church (or assembly) which is "edified"
by words spoken in the midst of it in a language which

1 2 Cor. ii. 7. 2 Matt, xviii. 15-17.

3 See, for instance, 1 Cor. i. 10, vi. 7; 2 Thess. iii. 10, 11; and
the Epistles to the Seven Churches in the Apocalypse.

4 See note 1, p. 297. 5 Matt. xvi. 18. '6 Matt, xviii. 17.

7 Acts ix. 31 ; xv. 41 ; xvi. 5.

8 e.g., Rom. xvi. 4, 16. 1 Cor. vii. 17 ; xi. 16 ; xiv. 33, 34 ; xvi. 1.

9 Rev. i.-iii.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 299

every one understands,1 which "brings" Apostles "on
their way,"2 which "receives" delegates from another
Church,3 in which Epistles are read,4 and the like. There
is not a syllable to indicate that we are to take the word
cKK\-r)<Tia, in Eph. i. 22, v. 24; Col. i. 18, 24, in a sense
essentially different to that in which it is used in Acts
xviii. 22; 1 Cor. vi. 4; 3 John 10. It is true that this
Church is called the spouse of Christ,5 but so was the
Jewish Church spoken of under a similar figure. Yet the
Jewish Church certainly contained persons who were un
worthy of their high calling. And if Christ is said to
"love the Church and give Himself for it, that He might
present unto Himself a glorious Church, not having spot
or wrinkle, or any such thing,"6 it is clear enough that it
is not the present but the final condition of the Church
which is described in these words. Her present condition
is one of trial and purgation.7 It is only when that purga
tion is accomplished that she will answer to the description
just mentioned. If it be contended that we cannot prove
that the word " Church," in the sense in which it is spoken
of as Christ's Body, is used in the same signification as
when it is used of the Church of a particular locality, we
may reply that, first of all, the onus probandi lies upon
those who would attach an altogether new meaning to a
word which has a distinctly recognized signification in
Scripture; and, next, that the term body (o-w/xa) is
obviously something which is neither invisible nor im
palpable, but which possesses a definite and visible form
and organization. We conclude, then, finally, that the
One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, in which we
express our belief, is a visible society composed of all
those who own the sovereignty of Christ.

1 1 Cor. xiv. 4. 2 Acts xv. 3. 3 Acts xv. 4. 4 Col. iv. 16.
5 Eph. v. 23. 6 Eph. v. 25, 27. 7 Tit. ii. 14. Gf. Rev. i. 5 ; vii. 14.

300 THE CREED.

One other point demands a moment's attention. The
Church is frequently spoken of as though it were a
teaching body, as though it were a kind of "Vice-Christ,"
or in some way an intermediary between God and man.
If what has been said above be true, this mode of
speaking of the Church is altogether inadmissible. That
God's ministers have authority to minister Christ, to speak
with authority in His Name, is not denied. On the con
trary, it will be demonstrated in a subsequent section. But
they do so as members of the Church endowed with special
functions, not in any sense as constituting a Church by
themselves, or as in any sense standing in the way of the
access which each individual member of the Church has
to its Head. There are teachers in the Church, no doubt;
but they "speak as unto wise men," who have power to
"judge what they say."1 There is no ecdesia docens on
the one hand, or ecdesia diswns on the other, considered
as existing apart the one from the other, for all members
of the Church have a share in the Life of the Head. Nor
can that be an intermediary between God and man, which
is itself composed of men in whom Christ dwells. The
Church is itself called "Christ" by St. Paul,2 because
every single member of the Church is interpenetrated
by the Being of his Lord. If the voice of the Church
demands respectful attention at the hands of the indi
vidual, it is because Christ inhabits the whole Church by
His Spirit. Every member of Christ's Body has his own
special office,3 and in that office contributes his share to
the building up of the whole.4 But that office of building
up by communication of gifts is nowhere taught by Christ
or His first messengers to inhere solely in the Church's
officers. In their measure, it is possessed by all on whom

1 1 Cor. x. 15. Of. 1 John ii. 20, 27. 2 1 Cor. xii. 12.

3 Rom. xiL 4. 4 Eph. iv. J5, 16 j Col. ii. 19.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 301

the Name of Christ is named. Thus the Church is One
as animated by the Life of her "One Lord."1 It is Holy,
as inhabited by the Holy Spirit, and "called with a holy
calling."2 It is Catholic, as spread throughout the whole
world, and as comprising those who "are fallen asleep in
Jesus." 3 It is Apostolic, as resting on the " twelve founda
tions," which are the " twelve Apostles of the Lamb." 4 It
is a visible society, consisting of all those on whom the
Name of Christ is named, and in whom His Life may be
believed to dwell.

SECTION II.

ON THE SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH.

The Church, as we have just seen, is a visible society.
It must, therefore, have some external signs of membership.
These are the two Sacraments ordained by Christ, the one
as a means of entrance into the Church, the other as a
means of testifying our combined membership in the com
munity which He has founded.5

1 Eph. iv. 5. 2 2 Tim. i. 9 ; 1 Pet. i. 15, 16.

3 1 Thess. iv. 14. 4 Rev. xxi. 14.

5 The Roman Catholic divines have laid it down (Council of Trent,
Session 7, Canon I.) that there are Seven Sacraments, i.e., Baptism,
the Eucharist, Confirmation, Penance, Matrimony, Holy Orders, and
Extreme Unction ; and some divines among ourselves have felt bound
to follow them in this matter, partly because on this point the Eastern
Church agrees with the Roman. But it is quite unnecessary so to do.
For the point has never been submitted to an Oecumenical Council,
nor has it been decided that this doctrine has been taught ' ' ubique,
semper, et ab omnibus." The word Sacrament is unquestionably used
in a very wide sense by the early Fathers, and even in our own
Homilies. This is natural enough, since the Greek word used to signify
a Sacrament is fj-var^piov, i.e., that which has a hidden meaning, and
the Latin word Sacramentum originally signified an oath. But the
use of these words was by no means restrained in early writers to the
two Sacraments ordained by Christ ; nor, as Bishop Harold Browne
shows in his treatise on the XXXIX. Articles, to what are regarded as the

302 THE CREED.

The mode of entrance appointed by Christ into His
Church is the Sacrament of Baptism. He enjoins this upon
us by example and by precept. By His Baptism in the
river Jordan, as our Church reminds us in her Baptismal
offices, He "sanctified water to the mystical washing away
of sin."1 He hints at some mysterious reason why He
should receive baptism. It " became " Him thus " to fulfil
all righteousness." 2 Before His Ascension, He commanded
His servants to "make disciples" of all nations by "bap
tizing them into the Name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost."3 The baptismal formula thus
expressly enjoined is not mentioned elsewhere in Holy
Writ, but it is preserved in the universal tradition of the
Church. The form of words given by St. Matthew has
ever since been regarded as necessary to a valid performance

seven Sacraments in the Churches of Rome and of the East. Their
teaching on this point has one very serious inconvenience— that it
couples together under one definition things essentially distinct —
rites that are, and rites that are not, necessary to salvation. And
so the Roman Church is compelled (Council of Trent, Session 7,
Canon III.) to anathematize such as declare all the Sacraments to be of
equal importance and dignity. Our own definition of the Sacraments
as rites expressly ordained by Christ, and therefore under all ordinary
circumstances necessary to salvation, is far the most logical and the
least confusing to the mind. Moreover, the two great Sacraments
between them contain all that is absolutely necessary for the spiritual
life. Baptism is concerned with its initiation, and the Holy Com
munion for its continuation. The other rites may be valuable
adjuncts to the two primary means of grace. But they never can be
supposed to stand on a level with them. It may be further observed,
in reference to the doctrine that there are seven Sacraments, that if
all these seven Sacraments were of equal dignity and importance, and
equally necessary to salvation, then no member of the Church of Rome
could be saved, for no married person in that Church can be ordained,
nor any ordained person married — another reason why we should
prefer our own far clearer and less confusing definition. The Eastern
Church substitutes "Unction by Chrism" for Confirmation in its list.

1 Office for Public Baptism of Infants.
' 2 Matt. iii. 15. 3 Matt, xxviii. 19.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 303

of the rite. Baptism according to any other form was
held to be invalid, and required to be repeated.1 The con
cluding verses of St. Mark's Gospel, whether they be
regarded as part of the original Gospel or not, bear witness
to the belief in very early times that Baptism was necessary
"where it might be had."2 "He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved, but he that disbelieveth shall be
condemned."3 That is to say, baptism, as the public pro
fession of adherence to Christ and the prescribed rite of
admission into His Church, should as a matter of course
follow upon conviction of the truth concerning His Person
and office; but if for any sufficient reason the Sacrament
did not happen to have been administered, condemnation
naturally would not follow. It is unbelief in Christ, not
the accidental omission of a rite, which cuts men off from
Him. But deliberate disobedience to His commands, we
must remember, on the other hand, is a distinct evidence
of unbelief. Therefore they who will not be baptized are
unquestionably involved in the sentence of condemnation
pronounced on unbelievers. In St. John's Gospel, which
views the Gospel from its interior and spiritual, rather than
its external side, the same truth finds different expression.

1 Acts xix. 1-5. Baptism " into the name of the Lord Jesus " has
apparently always been held to involve implicit obedience to His
directions. If exception be taken to the words "always" and "ever
since," used here and in the text, it may be answered that if our
information about the earliest times is by no means complete, at
least, when we do meet with information, it is to the same effect as
what has been said. TERTULLIAN (De Bapt. 13, and Adv. Prax. 26)
and the author of the Clementine Recognitions (iii. 67 and vi. 9) are
our earliest authorities for the practice. There is also one of the
Apostolic Canons (49) which forbids any other baptism. Dionysius
of Alexandria (circa A.D. 258) speaks of the strange ceremonies in
heretical baptisms. See EUSEBIUS, Ecd. Hist. vii. 9 ; also HIPPOLYTUS,
Refutation of Heresies, ix. 15.

2 Office for Baptism of those of Riper Years : Exhortation.

3 Mark xvi. 16.

304 THE CREED.

Our Lord, speaking to Mcodemus on the conditions of
entrance into His Kingdom, speaks of a birth or begetting
of the Spirit as closely connected with the use of water in
the rite of initiation. In other words, the entrance into
Christ's Kingdom or Church brings with it, as a conse
quence, the communication of a new life from above,1
effected by the operation of the Holy Spirit. Thus the
Sacrament of Baptism — so the Catechism of the Church of
England teaches — has two parts : an external ceremony,
introducing the recipient into the outAvard fellowship of
Christ's Church, and an inward spiritual grace, communi
cating to the newly-baptized person the new nature which,
as we have seen,2 it was the object of Christ's coming to
impart, and which He promised to give to every one who
enters into fellowship with Him.3

Both the necessity of the external rite, and the blessing
conveyed by it to the faithful recipient, are frequently
insisted upon in the Acts of the Apostles and in their
Epistles. "They who received the word" of the Apostle
Peter, on the day of Pentecost, were straightway "bap
tized."4 So were those unto whom Philip the deacon
preached at Samaria.5 He also baptized the Ethiopian
eunuch, and in his case the " preaching of Jesus " involved
the mention of the rite of initiation into the Church.6
Even the miraculous conversion of Saul was not held to
make it right to dispense with that rite of initiation,7
nor yet the miraculous descent of the Holy Ghost upon
Cornelius and his associates.8 From this, as well as St.

, in John iii. 3, means either "anew" or " from above."

2 See pp. 141, 143, 166.

3 Some would prefer to regard baptism as a kind of guarantee,
assuring the recipient of the fact that it is in his power to become the
possessor of this new nature.

4 Acts ii. 41. 6 Acts viii. 12, 13. 6 Acts viii. 36, 38.
7 Acts ix. 18. 8 Acts x. 47, 48.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 305

Paul's rebaptism of the Ephesians, who had only received
John's baptism,1 we may infer that the form of Baptism in
the name of the Holy Trinity was regarded from the first
as essential, though it is not always specifically mentioned
in the account given by St. Luke of the reception of indi
viduals into the Church.2 Lastly, we find Baptism included
in Heb. vi. 2 among the first "principles" of the religion
"of Christ."3

We have equally explicit testimony in regard to the
change wrought, in consequence of the rite, in the condition
of the believer. "As many as were baptized into Christ,
did put on Christ," says St. Paul.4 In other words, they
received the Life of Christ.5 He gives expression to the
same truth, in language slightly different, in 1 Corinthians
xii. 12, 13, "As the body is one, and hath many members,
and all the members of the body, being many, are one body,
so also is Christ. For in One Spirit were we all baptized
into one body." That is to say, as the link of connection
in the human body, which binds all its members into one,
is the individuality of the man whose life pervades the
body, so is Christ the individuality which gives its character
to His Body, the Church. His is the Life which permeates
its members, and makes them one. And Baptism is the
means, in all ordinary cases, whereby that Life is given. It
is called by St. Paul the font (Xovrpov) of regeneration
(i.e., begetting anew, TraAiyyei/eo-ta), and renewing of the

1 Acts xix. 1-5.

2 Baptism is, however, mentioned again incidentally in Acts xvi.
15, 33 ; xxii. 16.

3 This has been much disputed, partly in consequence of the use of
the unusual word /3a?rTt(r/i6s for /3a7rTto>ia. There seems, however, no
solid ground for believing the statement above to be incorrect. See
Bishop WESTCOTT'S- note in loc.

4 Gal. iii. 27.

5 We shall see this more clearly when we come to consider the
Delation of the other Sacrament to the spiritual life of man.

306 THE CREED.

Holy Ghost.1 According to St. Peter, it "saves us by
the Kesurrection of Jesus Christ," not simply by removing
the taint of sin, but by enabling us to offer "the answer
of a good conscience " to God.2 It is called the " Baptism
of the Holy Ghost," because it is by His agency alone that
the Life of Christ is imparted.8 It is the "Baptism of
Fire," because by it the fire of Divine love and purity is
lighted within us. It unites us not only to Christ, but to
Christ in His whole redemptive work. We are baptized into
Christ's Death. We are "buried with Christ by baptism
into death." We are united with Him in the likeness of
His Death. And by reason of our thus dying with Him,
we also rise with Him.4 In Colossians ii. 12, St. Paul
gives more definite expression to this last fact. We are
"buried with Christ in baptism,"5 and are "raised with
Him" by reason of our faith in God's working in raising
Him from the dead. This union with Christ involves the
remission of sins.6 And this fact is specially singled out in
the Nicene Creed as the special object of Baptism. "I
believe in one Baptism for (or unto) the remission of sins."
That is to say, "I believe that every one who is admitted
into the covenant of Divine favour at Baptism is freed from
condemnation."7 And not only freed from condemnation,
but is possessed of a new and Divine Life.8 The public
confession of Christ, and its ratification by admission into
the Church in the way Christ has ordained, entitles the

1 Titus iii. 5. 2 1 Peter iii. 21.

3 See p. 270. AndMatt.iii.il. Marki. 8. Luke iii. 16. Johni. 33;
iii. 5. Acts i. 5 ; ii. 38 ; xi. 16. 1 Cor. xii. 13.

4 Horn. vi. 3-5. Of. 2 Cor. iv. 10, 11.

6 ev T$ pa.irTiafj.aTi. ; in the baptism which Christ has ordained.
8 Acts ii. 38. Cf. xxii. 16.

7 Rom. viii. 1. Cf. John iii. 18, which forms part of the Saviour's
discourse on Baptism.

8 1 John i. 2 ; v. 11, 12. Cf. our Lord's own declaration, John
x. 10.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 307

believer to all the privileges which belong to members of
the Church. If it be true that His disciples are grafted
into Christ, then the participation in His Life which comes
from being so grafted into Him is also ours. The possession
of this gift involves cleansing from sin.1 Nor is this all. It
actually expels sin from the believer by virtue of the life-
giving power which resides in Christ, just as poison is ex
pelled from the system by the action of a remedial agency.2
A stream of forgiveness and healing for ever proceeds from
Christ, Who is to us fallen human creatures the only source
of health and life.

We must, however, bear in mind the fact that there
are two sides to the question of the effect of Baptism.
There is the objective or Divine side, and the subjective
or human side. The gift of God is given absolutely,
once for all, as far as He is concerned. Baptism is an
expression of His Will that " all men shall be saved, and
come to the knowledge of the truth." 8 " The gifts of God
are without repentance."4 When He has once placed His
" exceeding great and precious promises " within our reach,
He will not withdraw them. Ideally, therefore, the baptized
person is in possession of them all. This is the reason why
in no case ought baptism to be repeated. The promises — all
the promises — of the Gospel are from henceforth within the

1 Eph. v. 26 ; John i. 7 ; Rev. i. 5.

2 Bishop PEARSON, in his note on dfatvai, <$0e<ris (On the Creed,
p. 363), tells us that the word is capable of "several interpretations."
Thus it sometimes means emissio, as in Gen. xxxv. 18 (LXX.), Matt,
xxvii. 50 ; sometimes it means permissio, as in Matt. iii. 15 ; some
times the verb means " relinquere and deserere," as in Matt. xxvi. 56 ;
and sometimes it is equivalent to omittere. Matt, xxiii. 23, Luke xi. 42.
Then it also means rcmiltere, as in Matt, xviii. 27, 32. I have never
been able to see why one of these meanings should be pressed, to the
exclusion of all the others. At least, the meanings casting vut and
passing over, may be allowed side by side with forgiving.

3 1 Tim. ii. 4. 4 Rom. xi. 29.

308 THE CREED.

reach of the recipient of Baptism. But we must not allow
ourselves to forget that God's gifts are conditional on our
acceptance of them, and our willingness to use them. Until
the baptized realize their position, they are like legatees
under a will, before the necessary formalities have been
gone through, and the property actually placed in their
hands. In fact, the baptism of the spirit is potential only
till the human will co-operates with it. It is actual as soon
as that co-operation has begun to take place. Baptism, there
fore, does but initiate us into a condition which only the
conscious exertion of our wills can render permanent.1

Therefore this Divine life, thus given, presupposes some
condition on our part before it can come into actual opera
tion. That condition is faith. We need not repeat what
has been said on this point in the opening chapter. All
that is necessary here is to show that what is predicated
objectively of the Divine act is also predicated subjectively
of the human appropriation of it. "He that believeth,
and is baptized, shall be saved." Baptism, therefore, with
out faith is a mere empty form of words. The public
profession of allegiance to Christ, when we do not believe
in Him, is an act of hypocrisy which cannot escape punish
ment. The discourse, again, in which Jesus Christ declares
the necessity of regeneration by water and the Spirit,
also implies that faith is a necessary condition of that
regeneration. "God so loved the world that He gave His
only begotten Son, that whoso believeth on Him should not
perish, but have eternal life. ... He that believeth on
Him is not judged : he that believeth not hath been judged
already."2 We have seen that Christ is "put on" by
baptism.3 But faith is the necessary condition for making

1 See pp. 309, 314.
8 John iii. 16, 18.
3 Gal. iii. 27.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 309

that " putting on " effectual.1 It is our faith alone which,
putting oiw will in motion, can appropriate the gift, and
convert it into spiritual energy.2 We cannot, again, separate
St. Paul's very definite teaching concerning baptism, in his
Epistle to the Romans, from his emphatic assertion of the
necessity of faith to our justification in the same Epistle.
If baptism be said to unite us with the Death of Christ,
so is faith in His Blood declared to be a condition of justifi
cation. Indeed, both His Death and Resurrection, connected
so closely with Baptism in chap, vi., are equally closely
connected with faith in chap. iv. 25. So, too, the deliver
ance from, or remission of, sins, which, as we have seen, is
associated with Baptism, is in other parts of Holy Writ
associated as closely with the Sacrifice of Christ, realized
subjectively by the human spirit through faith.3 It is clear,
therefore, that these promises made in Baptism are, as has
just been said, conditional, first on our acceptance of them,
and next on our resolution to use them.

This is the reason why promises of repentance, faith, and
obedience have always been demanded either from the
recipient of baptism, or from others acting in his name.
It is a question whether such conditions are mentioned in
Holy Scripture as a part of the rite of baptism. The
Revised Version omits Acts viii. 37, and there is consider
able reason for considering the verse to be an interpolation.4
Yet there can be no doubt that some public confession of

1 Gal. iii. 26.

2 Eph. iii. 17. Cf. chap. ii. 8-22. This is a common phenomenon
in visible things. We have the power of motion ; but it is dormant
until our will puts it into action. An engine-boiler is full of steam ;
but the engine does not move until the will of the driver converts
potential energy into motion.

3 Acts x. 43 ; xxvi. 18. Rom. iii. 25 ; x. 10, 11. Gal. ii. 20; iii. 22.

4 The passage is not found in the best MSS. and Versions of the
New Testament. But it is found in Irenaeus and Cyprian, so that
it is of considerable antiquity.

310 THE CREED.

allegiance to Christ was either expressed or understood.
Otherwise, baptism would be a meaningless rite. But it is
impossible that the rite of initiation into Christ's Church
can mean nothing. It must pledge those who receive it to
conformity with His purpose, which is to destroy the empire
of sin in us, and to "purify to Himself a people of His
own possession, zealous of good works."1 And it would
also necessarily imply a belief in the Divine Being and
power of Him Who came into the world for this object.
Accordingly, it seems to have been an universal tradition
of the Christian Church, from the earliest times, to re
quire the vows of renunciation, faith, and obedience, which
are found in the Baptismal Offices of the Church of
England.2

The question, however, has further been asked, Have we
a right to admit infants to the blessings of the Christian
covenant, and to require of them, through the mouths of
others, promises which they themselves may never care to
fulfil 1 Before answering that question, it will be necessary
to call to mind once more what the Christian covenant is,
and what is the precise nature of the promises made in the
infant's name, In regard to the first point, it must be
remembered that the word covenant, when used to describe
the relations of God to man, is at best but an approximation
to the truth; and if we regard it as in all respects an
accurate expression to denote those relations, we shall find

1 Titus ii. 14.

2 See the Apostolic Constitutions, vii 41 (about the middle of the
fourth century). But TERTULLIAN (De Corona, 3) makes the same
statement at the beginning of the second century. JUSTIN MARTYR,
in his first Apology (about 150 A.D.), mentions the persuasion of the
baptized of the truth of the Christian religion, and their undertaking
to live according to its precepts.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 311

it misleading. A covenant, properly speaking, is an agree
ment between equals, or persons who are, in some senses,
on a footing of equality. There can be no covenant between
a master and a slave. And yet the position of a slave in
relation to his master is freedom itself compared to the
position of man in relation to God. Man owes everything
to God. God brought man into being, and keeps him in
being. Man cannot lift a hand, nor even draw a breath,
without God's permission, and even co-operation. Even the
actual commission of sin is only possible by Divine permis
sion. And thus every possible covenant and agreement
between God and man is of such a kind that it must emanate
from the former, and the latter is morally bound, though of
course not practically compelled, to accept it. So St. Paul
argues in the Epistle to the Galatians. The relations
between God and man rest ultimately, not upon a covenant,
but upon promises. And of these promises God Himself is
the sole author. " A mediator is not a mediator of one, but.
God is one."1 In other words, there are not two parties to
God's promises to mankind. They issue from His Will alone.
It follows that the word Mediator, when applied to Christ,
though it doubtless applies to his work in bringing God and
man again into union, does not mean that in His dealings
between God and man He treats man as though he were on
an altogether separate and independent footing. Jesus Christ
aims at restoring man to his relations with God by imparting
to him a new and higher life, which shall destroy the corrupt
and degraded self which he inherited from his forefathers.
But this life is altogether a Divine gift. Man is in no sense
a party to that gift. God has, it is true, permitted him the
momentous power of neglecting and despising it. But the

1 Gal. iii. 20.

312 THE CREED.

idea of a compact which represents God as offering certain
blessings to man, and man as occupying the position of an
altogether free, responsible, independent being, and from
this position notifying his acceptance or refusal of those
conditions, is an entirely misleading one. The very faith by
which man is supposed to appropriate the blessings offered
to him is "not of himself," but is, we are told, itself the
gift of God.1

Thus, then, in the first instance, man is the humble,
childlike, we may even say helpless, recipient of an ines
timable Divine gift, by which, if he cherish and employ it
according to the intentions of the Giver, he will become
entitled to innumerable and unimaginable blessings. The
conditions involved in the baptismal vows are not conditions
precedent to the gift, but conditions consequent on it.2 We
do not, in our Baptismal office for infants, represent the
unconscious babe as entering into a deliberate engagement
with God as one would do with an equal. The sponsors
in Infant Baptism do not recite the conditions under which
the unconscious infants receive the blessings placed by the
sacrament within their reach. Even the prayer in our

1 Eph. ii. 8. If it be contended that TOVTO is not of the same
gender as Trforews, it may be replied that this makes but little
difference. St. Paul means to say that salvation is altogether God's
gift. roOro— this process — is not our doing. Not even our faith can
be said to be a work of our own. Faith is included in the gift. Good
works are the results — the fruit— of the Spirit's saving Presence in
the heart ; not in any sense the cause of it.

2 That this is the view of our Church, is clear from the Office for
Private Baptism. The baptism, i.e. the gift of Life in Christ in its
initial stage, is complete when the child has been baptized into the
Name of the Blessed Trinity. The Baptismal vows are only required
for the public reception into the Christian society. They are con
cerned, not with the gift itself, but with the use of the gift.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCli. 313

Baptismal office — which suggests difficulties to many minds —
that the child may receive "remission of its sins by spiritual
regeneration" has reference to the future as much as to the pre
sent. The Christian lives under a covenant which involves
continuous remission of sins to those who fulfil its conditions.
" Spiritual regeneration " initiates a life of the spirit within
the soul. And continuous repentance involves the mastery
of the spirit over the flesh, the mastery of the life regenerate
over the natural life of man. The difference between the
baptized infant and the baptized adult may be thus ex
plained. The infant opposes no bar to the reception of the
graces consequent on baptism. On the other hand, the
actual transmission of those graces must await the moment
when the infant can consciously embrace them. The insti
tution of godfathers and godmothers seems to point to the
desire of the Church that Baptism should not be regarded as
an opus operatum, that there should be some guarantee that
the seed should not be cast by the wayside, and that a
suitable soil should be provided for such a seed — a soil such
as is provided by the Christian society into which it is
introduced. In the case of the adult, he either by faith
heartily accepts the gift tendered to him in the sacrament, or
by want of faith, he refuses to do so. In the former case it
is his at once. In the latter its transmission is by God's
infinite mercy and lovingkindness postponed until he is in
a fitting condition to receive it. Therefore in his case the
Christian society asks the question whether the candidate
for baptism is willing to own Christ as his Master, because
it seeks to make him understand that on that condition alone
can the gift of Life in Christ be operative. In the case
of the infant, the Christian society is content with the
promise that the child shall be taught to reverence and
follow Christ, and instructed in the nature of the gift

314 THE CREED.

which it has at least potentially received. But both the
infant and the adult are alike in regard to the gift of the
Life from on high. That gift is as absolute on God's part
to the one as to the other. In neither case is the gift
itself contingent on faith. In each case it is the expression
of the Divine Will, which has willed the salvation of the
whole world.1 But the gift once given, the intelligent
co-operation of the human will, through the medium of
faith, is required to make it effectual. Without this, the
gift of the new and higher Life will remain inoperative,
and will, if the recipient persist in his disobedience, be
ultimately withdrawn. Thus, then, the Church, in con
formity with the declaration of her Divine Head, looks
on Baptism as the moment when we may regard the vital
and necessary change called regeneration as having taken
place, or at the very least as the moment from which the
presence of the new and higher life has been placed within
our reach. But it is not supposed that anything but the
conscious and continuous co-operation of the individual will

1 Dr. PUSEY puts the case for baptismal regeneration thus: "The
plain letter of Scripture says 'we are saved by baptism'; and men say,
' we are not saved by baptism.' Our Lord says, * a man must be born
of water and of the Spirit' ; man, that he need not— cannot be— born
of water. Scripture, that ' we are saved by the washing [the word in
the original means font] of regeneration ' ; man, that we are not, but
by regeneration, which is as a washing. Scripture, that ' we are
baptized for the remission of sins ' ; man, that we are not, but to
attest that remission. Scripture, that ' whosoever hath been baptized
into Christ, hath put on Christ' ; man, that he hath not. Scripture,
that 'they have been buried with Him by baptism into death' ; man,
that they have not. Scripture, that ' Christ cleansed the Church by
the washing of water by the word ' ; man, that He did not, for bare
elements could have no such virtue. Scripture, that ' we were baptized
into one body'; men, that we were not, but that we were in that
body before." Tract 69 for the Times, p. 198, 1st Ed.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 3l5

can secure to each member of the Church the permanent
possession of the Life which Christ came to impart.1

A few words on Confirmation may be desirable. It is
the official seal set to Baptism by the chief minister of the
community.2 In the Western Church it has been wisely
deferred, on the principle that the gift in Baptism cannot
have its perfect work until each baptized person has taken
the step of conscious self-dedication of himself to God.
And so the official "seal" of the Christian Church is not
set to all membership, but only to such membership as has
been definitely consecrated by the deliberate personal accept
ance of Christ as Master, and of the conditions which flow
from such acceptance of Him. This personal avowal once
made, what was defective in the status of the baptized infant
is supplied ; he is regarded as a full member of the Christian
Church, and is at once admitted to Holy Communion.3 Thus

1 With regard to the fact of Infant Baptism, it may be sufficient
here to observe (1) that the households of believers are frequently said
in the N.T. to have been baptized as well as their heads ; (2) that
Polycarp, in the record of his martyrdom in A.D. 155 (c. 9), says that
he had served Christ eighty and six years, from which his baptism at
an early age appears at least extremely probable ; and (3) that his
disciple Irenaeus distinctly states that infants were baptized (Against
Heresies, ii. 22-4). JUSTIN MARTYR, in his first Apology, c. 15, makes
a similar statement. I may add that the practice of the Church in
this matter may be regarded as covered by 1 Cor. vii. 14. It is a
commonplace of theology that God's grace is not tied to Sacraments.
(See for this AQUINAS, Summa III., Q. 68, Art. 2.)

2 Such was the interpretation placed by the early Church on
2 Cor. i. 22 ; Eph. i. 13, iv. 30. But they were still more often
interpreted of Baptism. See BINGHAM, Antiquities, XI. i. 6 and
XII. i. 1.

3 For further information on Baptism the reader is referred to The
Second Adam and the New Birth, and The Sacrament of Responsibility,
by Prebendary SADLER, as also to his well-known volume, Church

3l6 THE CREED.

Confirmation, properly speaking, is not itself a Sacrament,
but only the official confirmation, attestation, and completion
of one already received. But it involves the fuller out
pouring of the gift of the Holy Spirit, though without
the miraculous attestations which were vouchsafed in the
Apostolic Age.

This brings us to the second great Sacrament of the
Gospel, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, so called
because it was instituted during the course of the Paschal
meal which our Lord ate with His disciples on the night
before His Passion.1 It has been also called the Holy
Communion because St. Paul tells us that it is the " com
munion of," or fellowship in, the " Body and Blood of
Christ."2 The name Eucharist has also been given to it
because it was regarded as a " sacrifice of praise and thanks
giving" for all the blessings enjoyed by members of the
Christian Church.3 The special function of this Sacrament

Doctrine, Bible Truth. An excellent book on the Catechism by the
Rev. A. J. C. Allen will also be found useful. WALL, On Infant
Baptism t is still the great authority on that subject. The writer is
indebted to Bishop Harvey Goodwin for a statement made in one of
Ids volumes of sermons, that a belief in the necessity of Infant
Baptism is not required of the laity of the Church of England, and
that therefore no one need secede from her pale on account of feeling
a difficulty on the subject.

1 The bread was taken and blessed, ev T£ $a.yeiv—i.e. during the
course of the Paschal meal. See Matt. xxvi. 26 ; Mark xiv. 22.
It was only the Cup which was blessed " after supper."

2 1 Cor. x. 16.

3 The term Mass, which is used in the Roman and Old
Catholic Churches, and has lately been revived by some among
ourselves, has no special doctrinal significance, but is simply derived
from the words of dismissal, lie, missa cst, at the end of the Latin
rite.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 317

is (1) to emphasize the fact that the communication of
Christ's Life to the spirit of the believer is a continuous
process; and (2) to be a principal means whereby that
process is carried on. As St. John iii. contains Christ's
discourse on regeneration, so St. John vi. contains His
discourse on the manner in which the Life given is sus
tained. Christ's Flesh and Blood are to be continually
assimilated by the believer according to a process analogous
to the way in which our natural body is nourished and
sustained.1

But when we come to ask how this process is effected, we
find that there is a yet further parallel between the natural
and the spiritual life. The natural life is sustained by the
use of means. Food must be taken into the system, or the
body would perish of inanition ; the principle of life would
desert it. Precisely so with the soul. There needs a con
tinual repair of the waste of the spiritual part of man — a
waste produced by sin, as bodily waste is produced by
exertion. And this repair must be effected by the use
of means. For in the spiritual, as well as in the natural
life, ends are secured by means.2 To this truth our Lord

1 The use of the present tense in the whole discourse, and possibly
the use of the word rpcfryw, instead of the more usual faOiti}, point
to the process as a continuous one. The signification of rpc^yw seems
to be originally to make a liole by gnawing or nibbling, and therefore
it suggests the idea of continued energy in the act.

2 "This is therefore the necessity of Sacraments. That saving
grace which Christ originally is or hath for the general good of His
whole Church, by Sacraments He severally deriveth into every member
thereof." HOOKER, Eccl. Pol. V. Ivii. 5. "Baptism doth challenge
to itself but the inchoation of those graces, the consummation whereof
dependeth on mysteries ensuing. We receive Christ Jesus in Baptism
once as the first beginner, in the Eucharist after as being by continual
degrees the finislier of our Life." Ib. V. Ivii. 6. "The grace which
we have by the Holy Eucharist doth not begin but continue life.
No man therefore receiveth this Sacrament before Baptism, because
n.o dead thing is capable of nourishment. That which groweth must

318 THE CREED.

bears witness by such actions as He performed when working
some of His miracles.1 Such a means of keeping up the
communication of the Life of Christ the Holy Communion
undoubtedly is.2 The arguments of those divines who
contend that there can be no connection between our Lord's
discourse in St. John vi. and the institution of the Holy
Communion, because the latter was instituted at least a
year subsequent to the pronunciation of the former, are
hardly consistent with a very exalted idea of our Lord's
mental capacity. Setting His Divinity aside altogether, a
founder of a religion may reasonably be credited with
entertaining some idea, at least, beforehand of the character
of the religion he is about to found. And even on this
low ground it would seem perfectly clear that when our
Lord, at the close of His earthly career, sanctified bread
and wine to be in some way or other the channels whereby
His Flesh and Blood were to be conveyed to His disciples,
He must have intended them to connect this rite with the
declarations He had previously so emphatically made, that
the assimilation by the believer of that Flesh and Blood
was absolutely essential to the preservation of the Eternal
Life which He has elsewhere repeatedly declared He had
come to impart. The Sacrament of Holy Communion is,
of course, not the exclusive medium through which the
great gift of Christ's Life may be received. We ought not
to forget, for instance, the significant declaration of our

of necessity first live. If our bodies did not daily waste, food to
satisfy them were a thing superfluous. And it may be that the grace
of Baptism would serve to eternal life, were it not that the state of
our spiritual being is daily so much hindered and impaired after
Baptism." Ib. V. Ixvii. 1,

1 e.g., when he "made clay" and anointed the eyes of the blind
man, or spat and touched the tongue of the dumb one.

2 Matt, xxvi 26-28 ; Mark xiv. 22-25 ; Luke xxii. 19, 20 ; 1 Cor.
xi. 23-26. The various readings in these passages should be carefully
noted.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 319

Master, that "man doth not live by bread alone, but by
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."1
But we have the strongest ground for maintaining that
when Christ, in so marked and solemn a manner, consecrated
the elements of bread and wine to be a means of spiritual
feeding upon Him, He intended to signify to us that
among the means by which such spiritual feeding is carried
on, the regular reception of the Sacrament of the Lord's
Supper must necessarily hold the most prominent place.

There are two main currents of opinion in regard to the
Holy Communion among Christians at the present day.
One regards it as a rite involving a real participation in
the Life of Christ; the other as a mere commemoration of
the Last Supper, and the subsequent Death of Christ.
This last view, usually called the Zwingliaii view, must be
rejected as altogether inadequate. In fact, it is very doubt
ful whether we should ever have heard of it, but for the
exaggerations so long current in the opposite direction. It
is altogether irreconcilable with our Lord's own words, as
well as those of St. Paul, already referred to, which speak of
the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper as a " communion," or
joint participation, " of the Body and Blood of Christ." " No
bare sign, no untrue figure of a thing absent," 2 is the
sentence, without exception, of all well-instructed divines
of the Church of England, and of a large number of the
most devout and learned ministers of the Nonconformist
bodies.3

But those who agree in believing that there is a real
feeding on Christ, are by no means agreed in regard to the

1 Matt. iv. 4. See Deut. vhi. 3.

2 Homily " On the worthy receiving and reverent esteeming of the
Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ."

3 e.g., DODDRIDGE, in the words of the well-known hymn—

" Hail, sacred feast, which Jesus makes,
Rich banquet of His Flesh and Blood."

320 THE CREED.

manner of that feeding. Indeed, the Sacrament which our
Lord instituted as a means of union and communion among
His members, has been perverted so as to become a greater
source of discord than, perhaps, any other part of the
revelation of God in Christ. As this is the case, it may
be as well to mention, at the outset, that on the one vital
point in connection with this Sacrament all the disputants
of ivhom we now speak are agreed. This Hooker pointed
out three centuries ago. Would that he had not been so
far in advance of the vast majority of the members of the
Christian Church !

"The fruit of the Eucharist," he says, "is the participation
of the Body and Blood of Christ." And he adds, « < This is My
Body,' and ' this is My Blood,' being words of promise, sitli we
all agree that by the Sacrament Christ doth really and truly in
us perform the promise, why do we vainly trouble ourselves
with so fierce contentions, whether by consubstantiation, or else
by transubstantiation, the Sacrament itself be first possessed
with Christ, or no ? A thing which no way can either further
or hinder us, howsoever it stand, because our participation of
Christ in this Sacrament dependeth on the co-operation of His
Omnipotent power which maketh it His Body and Blood to us,
whether with change or without alteration of the element such
as they imagine we need not greatly to care nor inquire.

" Take therefore that wherein all agree, and then consider by
itself what cause why the rest in question should not rather be
left as superfluous than urged as necessary. It is on all sides
plainly confessed, first that this Sacrament is a true and a real
participation of Christ, Who thereby imparteth Himself, even
His whole entire Person as a Mystical Head unto every soul
that receiveth Him, and that every such receiver doth thereby
incorporate or unite himself unto Christ as a mystical member
of Him, yea of them also whom He acknowledged to be His
own ; secondly that to whom the Person of Christ is thus com
municated, to them He giveth by the same Sacrament His Holy
Spirit to sanctify them as it sanctifieth Him which is their
Head ; thirdly that what merit, force or virtue soever there is in
Jlis sacrificed Body and Blood, we freely, fully and wholly have it

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 321

by this Sacrament ; fourthly that the effect thereof in us is a real
transmutation of our souls and bodies from sin to righteousness,
from death and corruption to immortality and life ; fifthly that
because the Sacrament, being of itself but a corruptible and
earthly creature, must needs be thought an unlikely instrument
to work so admirable effects in man, we are therefore to rest
ourselves altogether upon the strength of His glorious power Who
is able and will bring to pass that the bread and cup which He
giveth us shall be truly the thing He promiseth.

" It seemeth therefore much amiss that against them whom
they term Sacramentaries so many invective discourses are made,
all running upon two points, that the Eucharist is not a bare
sign or figure only, and that the efficacy of His Body and Blood
is not all we receive in this Sacrament. For no man, having
read their books and writings which are thus traduced, can be
ignorant that both these assertions they plainly confess to be
most true. They do not so interpret the words of Christ as if
the name of His Body did import but the figure of His Body,
and to be were only to signify His Blood. They grant that these
holy mysteries, received in due manner, do instrumental! y both
make us partakers of the grace of that Body and Blood which
were given for the life of the world, and besides also impart
unto us even in true and real though mystical manner the very
Person of our Lord Himself, whole, perfect, and entire, as hath
been showed."1

It is the passion for dogmatic definitions in matters, not
only of principle but of detail, which has led and still leads
the various branches of the Church so far from the path
which her Lord and Master has marked out for her. Were
they content to lay down as essential what our English

1 HOOKER, Eccl. Pol. V. Ixvii. 6-8. The italics are partly Hooker's,
and partly my own. I have also ventured to introduce a comma here
and there, to make the sense of the passage a little clearer. He goes
on (Sec. 9), "Now, whereas all three opinions do thus far accord in
one, that strong conceit which two of the three have embraced as
touching a literal, corporal and oral manducation of the very substance
of His Flesh and Blood is surely an opinion nowhere delivered in
Holy Scripture whereby they should think themselves bound to
believe it."

322 THE CREED.

Church Catechism teaches, and no more, namely, that " the
Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and
received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper"; were the
various schools of religious thought a little more inclined
to tolerate explanations which seem to them defective, or in
some way or other unsatisfactory, but which the Universal
Church has never condemned; did we but remember that
we are surrounded on all sides by mysteries of which all
adequate explanation is found to be impossible, we might
— seeing the central truth embodied in this Sacrament is
recognized on all hands — be induced to " agree to differ " on
the modus op&'andi of Sacramental grace. But we may
thankfully recognize that in spite of the attempts of those
who are more or less partisans to magnify differences, and
to represent their own particular forms of explanation as
" Catholic doctrine," on the one hand, or " Gospel truth " on
the other, there is a growing yearning among the wiser, more
far-sighted, more earnest-minded among us for the cessation
of controversy on these secondary questions of Christian
opinion, and for the concentration of Christian energy upon
the points which are of vital and practical necessity to a
Christian soul.

There are three different theories which have become
prominent in the history of theology on the subject of the
Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The first, or Tran-
substantiation, was thus defined at the Lateran Council, A.D.
1215 : "Christ's Body and Blood are really contained under
the species of bread and wine, i.e.y the bread being transub
stantiated into His Body, and the Wine into His Blood."1

1 Art. 1. DC fide Catholica, Mansi, Vol. 22, p. 982. "Cujus corpus
et sanguis in Sacramento altaris sub speciebus panis ct vini veraciter
continentur ; transubstantiatis, pane in corpus, et vino in sanguinem,
potestate divina, ut ad perficiendum mysterium unitatis accipiamus
ipsi de suo quod accepit ipse de nostro."

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 323

The second doctrine is known by the name Consubstan-
tiation. It was adopted as an alternative theory by the
Lutheran Churches after the Reformation. It teaches that
the real Body and Blood of Christ are truly present with
the bread and wine, and are eaten and drunk by the
recipients.1 The third theory is that of the Spiritual
Presence, apparently held by Calvin, though rejected by
a good many of his followers, who have drifted into
Zwinglianism on this point. It is the view held by the
majority of the divines of the Church of England until
the present century, when there has been a tendency to
adopt a view intermediate between the first two views.
This doctrine of the Spiritual Presence may best be
described in the words : " The Body of Christ is given,
taken, and received in the Supper only after a heavenly
and spiritual manner ; and the means whereby the Body
of Christ is received and eaten is faith."2 A" fourth
doctrine in regard to the Presence in the Eucharist has
lately been put forth or revived, and it is claimed, and
not without some reason, that it corresponds more closely
to the language of ancient divines than any of the three
others. It is here explained somewhat fully, because it is
less generally known than the rest. This view finds in the
Eucharist a real feeding, in spirit, on the Body and Blood of
Christ as at the moment of His Death upon the Cross. The
Body of Christ on which we feed is thus not His glorified
Body, but His Body as it hung dying or dead upon the Tree.
The Blood we drink is not that which courses in the veins

1 See the passage from Hooker, cited above. Also Augsburg Con
fession, Art. X. " The true Body and Blood of Christ are truly present
under the form of the bread and wine " (untcr Gestalt des Brotes und
Weines). The Saxon Confession (Art. I.) adopts Irenaeus' language,
and says there are "two things which are exhibited and received
together, the one earthly, that is, bread and wine, and one heavenly,
that is, the Body and Blood of Christ." 2 Art XXVIII.

324 THE CREED.

of His glorified Body — as has already been said, there is
some ground for the supposition that natural blood is replaced
in that spiritual Body by some more subtle principle of life
— but the blood as shed from the Body when, or it may be
after,1 He died — the Blood which had been poured out for the
sins of men. On this view we mystically eat and drink the
Flesh and Blood of the slain Lamb, "our Passover, Who
was," and eternally is, "sacrificed for us."2 Though the Body
and Blood thus mysteriously present, thus spiritually eaten
and drunk, have no longer a material or natural existence,
they ever exist to the eye of faith as living spiritual
facts. " The Lamb as it had been slain " is ever present to
our memories in the worship of the Church below, as it is to
the saints in Heaven in the worship of the Church above,3
and, as may also be believed, to the Mind of God; and
therefore the Flesh and Blood of Christ, as at the time of
His Death, are capable of being really, though spiritually,
eaten and drunk by the faithful in the Lord's Supper. From
this point of view they cannot be eaten and drunk in
any other way but spiritually. To partake of them, on
this view, is to transport ourselves by faith to the moment
when our Lord and Master breathed out His Life on the
Cross, and to unite our wills in spirit to His Sacrifice of
Himself, so that His Church, and every individual member
of it, inspired by the Spirit of their Master, offer their lives
also in the Sacrament of Holy Communion as a perpetual
"sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God."4 Thus the Sacrament
of Holy Communion continues the work which, as we
have seen, is begun in Baptism.5 As in Baptism, so
in Holy Communion, we are conjoined with Christ in His
wliole Redemptive work. By uniting ourselves to Him
in His Death, we become united with Him in His

1 John xix. 34. 2 1 Cor. v. 7, 8. 3 Rev. v. 6, 12 ; vii. 9.

4 Rom. xii. 1. B See p. 306.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 325

Resurrection and Ascension. Continually dying with Him
to sin, we also continually " rise with Him through faith in
the working of God, Who raised Him from the dead."1
Partaking of His Sacrifice, we are made partakers of its
results. Eating of the Flesh of the "Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world," 2 we become incorporate into His
glorified Body, which is ever present at the Right Hand of
the Father in Heaven. 8

A few words in explanation of the doctrine of Tran-
substantiation may avail to clear up some difficulties in
relation to it. Here, as elsewhere, we are confronted with
the ambiguities inseparable from the inadequacy of human
language as a vehicle of thought on the things of God.
And in this special case we have also to deal with the
change in philosophical terminology which the progress of
thought has brought about in the meaning of terms. The
word Transubstantiation, as applied to the elements in the
Lord's Supper, had its origin in the famous Nominalist
and Realist controversy in the ninth century. The Realists
contended that abstract ideas had a real existence. The
Nominalists contended that they were mere convenient
formulae of classification. If the Realist theory were
correct, then beneath the appearance of every object there

1 Rom. vi. 3, 4. Col. ii. 12. 2 Rev. xiii. 8.

3 This view, which demands more careful and exhaustive examina
tion than it has hitherto received, derives additional support from
the fact that Holy Communion is confessedly the New Passover of
the New Law ("novum Pascha novae legis," to use the words of an
ancient Latin Sacramental hymn) ; and the old Passover was the
feeding on a lamb sacrificed and slain. The early Fathers, though
they universally assert the reality of our feeding on Christ's Flesh
and Blood in the Eucharist, do not state, as modern theologians
have done, whether it is the glorified Body of Christ which is
partaken of, though they unquestionably regard a participation in
the life of the Risen and Glorified Christ as a result of suck
participation.

326 THE CREED.

was hidden an idea which had a real and actual existence,
the visible object being a mere phenomenon. This underlying
reality was called substance. The inquiry naturally extended
to the Lord's Supper, and it was asked what was the reality
which, after consecration, underlay the appearances (or
accidents, as they were called) of bread and wine. To
this it was answered, and not without some plausibility,
that the greater reality swallowed up the less, and that
therefore the ideas which underlay the appearance or acci
dents of the Eucharist were no longer bread and wine, but
the Body and Blood of Christ. Unfortunately the definition
outlived the theory. The Eealist philosophy went out of
fashion. The word substance gradually came to have other
significations. And the doctrine of Transubstantiation, as
formulated at the Lateran Council, clearly implies that the
material substance of bread and wine ceases to exist after
consecration, and that it is replaced by a local Presence of the
Body and Blood of Christ. It is scarcely too much to say
that this gross and material form of a profound metaphysical
conception is practically the belief of the vast majority of
the members of the Koman Church at the present day.
Yet such a belief is not necessarily involved in the word,
and Cardinal Newman has given us a definition of it which
differs in no material point from the language of our Art.
XXVIII. l It is, however, one of the many peculiarities of
the Koman system that language which passes unrebuked
from the lips or the pen of a Roman ecclesiastic of dis
tinction would be discouraged, if not interdicted, when used
by the ordinary parish priest. It is the more modern form

1 I have been unable to find Cardinal Newman's words, and must
quote them from memory. He describes the accidents in the Eucharist
as embracing everj^thing of which the senses can by any possibility
take cognizance. He does, however, say ( Via Media, p. 220), " Our
Lord neither descends from heaven upon our altars, nor moves when
carried in procession."

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 327

of the doctrine which is stigmatized by our article as " over
throwing the nature of a Sacrament." And there can be
little doubt that this is the belief most prevalent in the
Roman Church at the present moment. The vast majority
of the members of the Roman Communion, we may venture
to repeat, in the nineteenth as in the sixteenth century, are
taught to believe in a Body of Christ locally present on the
altar whenever Holy Communion is celebrated, and locally
present in the tabernacle whenever the Host is reserved.
Such a doctrine is not only a degradation of Divine mys
teries to the level of our human conceptions, it is ultimately,
as all low and sensuous conceptions of things Divine must
be, injurious to the moral character of those by whom it is
accepted.

There is a further reason why we should reject the dogma
of Transubstantiation. While we protest against negations
of truth on the one hand, and degradations of it on the
other, it is equally our duty to protest against the spirit
which has insisted on the acceptance by God's people of
exact definitions on points which do not admit of them.1
We are bound to resist all attempts to turn the Sacrament of
union into an apple of discord. Once more we may be
invited to ponder the cautions addressed to us by perhaps
the greatest divine our Church has produced: "Curious
and intricate speculations do hinder, they abate, they
quench such inflamed motions of delight and joy as divine
graces use to raise when extraordinarily they are present. 2
The principle for which Hooker contends once admitted,
"that this Sacrament is a true and a real participation of
Christ,"3 "why should any cogitation possess the mind of

1 "We object to Transubstantiation, because it is an explanation.
. . . We should be equally bound to reject any other explanation of
this Sacramental union. We are bound to accept the fact, not to
explain it." Rev. Father BENSON, Bible Teaching, p. 135.

2 HOOKER, Eccl. Pol. V. Ixvii. 3. 3 Ib. V. Ixvii. 7.

328 fHE CREED.

a faithful communicant but this, '0 my God, Thou art
true; O my soul, thou art happy?'"1

Another point on which there has been much difference
of opinion has been the sense in which the Eucharist is to
be regarded as a sacrifice. That it was so regarded in early
times is a fact which can hardly be disputed.2 But the
sense in which it was so regarded is more open to question.
Some contend that it was simply an oblation or sacrifice of
the fruits of the earth, involved in the presentation of the
elements of bread and wine. And the language of so early
a Father as Irenaeus shows that this idea was present to
the minds of those who regarded the Eucharist as a Sacrifice.3
Others have confined the sacrificial aspect of the Eucharist
to the offering of "praise and thanksgiving." Others, again,
have taught that there is a perpetual presentation by the
Ascended Christ of His Sacrifice in heaven ; and that there
is likewise a continual presentation of the Sacrifice of Christ
on earth in union with that presentation in heaven, and
that this presentation is made in the Holy Eucharist. We
have already dealt with this subject in connection with the
Ascension of our Blessed Lord. 4 The doctrine of our union
with Him, in and through the Spirit, sheds additional light
on it. "We may even go so far as to say that, by virtue of
that mystic yet most real union, what He is doing in heaven
His Church must, of necessity, be doing on earth. But it
is to be remarked that in this there is involved no idea of
a repetition of the Sacrifice of the Cross. In the Jewish

1 HOOKER, Eccl. Pol. V. Ixvii. 12.

2 From Justin Martyr onwards. See his Dialogue with Trypko,
chaps, xli., cxvii. Bishop Harold Browne says that Athenngoras,
writing a little later, is the first to apply to the Eucharist the title,
Unbloody Sacrifice. But he only uses the phrase ; he does not apply
it to the Eucharist.

3 IRENAEUS, Against Heresies, IV. xvii. 5 ; xviii. 4. [In the Roman
Mass itself the as yet unconsecratcd elements are offered to God for the
sins of all faithful Christians.] * See pp. 237-242.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 329

sacrifices we find that beside the slaying of the victim, there
was invariably, in some way or other, an offering, and a
presentation of it to God.1 In this sense — that of offering
or presenting exclusively — there seems no valid reason
why the clergy of the Christian Church should not be
regarded as sacrificing priests. Not that they may represent
themselves as sacrificing Christ — that were to " crucify Him
afresh " ; or as " making God " (an expression blasphemously
used in mediaeval times)2 and, therefore, may found a claim
arbitrarily to rule the elect of God; but that, as the
ministers of Christ on the one hand, and on the other as
the representatives of the whole Christian people, they may,
in union with the Church over whose worship they preside,
perpetually present to God the "One Sacrifice, once offered,"
on behalf of us sinners, and, at the same time, present to
Him the whole Body of Christ here below, also offering
itself as a Sacrifice, in union with the one Perfect Sacrifice
which was once offered for the sins of the whole world,
and is now eternally presented — or present — in heaven. 3

That the reception of this Sacrament is, as stated in the
Catechism, "generally necessary to salvation" — that is to
say, necessary whenever it is possible to obtain it — may be

1 In the burnt sacrifice there was the sprinkling of the blood on
the altar, as well as the consumption by fire ; in the meal-offering,
or Minchah (so generally supposed by the early Fathers to be typical
of the Eucharist), the burning the memorial ; in the peace-offering,
the burning of part of the sacrifice, and, in some cases, the sprinkling
of the blood ; in the sin and trespass offering, the sprinkling or
smearing of the blood ; in the ceremonial of the Day of Atonement,
the solemn offering of the blood of the victim in the Holy of Holies.
See Leviticus i.-v.

2 ST. JEROME, in his Epistle to Heliodorus (xiv. 8), speaks of the
priest as ' ' making the Body of Christ with his sacred mouth "
("Christi corpus sacro ore conficiunt") — a dangerous expression,
which was soon improved upon.

3 These two ideas, quite separate and distinct, are frequently con-
founded in popular thought under the name Sacerdotalism.

330 THE ORBED.

inferred from the following considerations : — first of all,
Christ enjoined that His disciples should "all" partake of
it;1 secondly, He ordered it to be a perpetual memorial
of His Death through all generations; thirdly, the Apostle
states that it was the custom for "all" members of the
Church to partake of it ; 2 fourthly, it seems hardly possible
that when our Lord sanctified this rite to be a means of
partaking of His Flesh and Blood, and commanded His
disciples to receive it, those who wilfully neglect or
refuse to obey His command can preserve the gift of
the Divine Humanity, by which alone our salvation is
effected.

If it be asked what dispositions are required in order that
we may worthily partake of it, we may answer in a few
words — the Mind which is in Christ Jesus, and the belief
that by none but His Spirit can that Mind be imparted.
This involves all, and more than all, which is contained in
the answer in the Church Catechism, "To examine them
selves, whether they repent them truly of their former sins,
steadfastly purposing to lead a new life, have a lively faith
in God's mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance
of His Death, and to be in charity with all men." To look
to Jesus Christ as the source of all human excellence; to
seek to be made like to Him; to aim at His Mind of
irreconcilable hostility towards sin; to cultivate His Spirit
of love towards our brother man; to confess where we
have failed to come up to the standard set before us; to
resolve to do all that in us lies to approach that standard
more nearly in the future ; — this it is to be a worthy com
municant. Unworthy communion is, of course, possible,
and not uncommon; but, on the other hand, there is often
an unreasonable dread of falling into it. The terrible
words, "He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth

1 Matt, xx vL 28. 2 1 Cor. x. 17.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 331

and drinketh damnation to himself,"1 have driven many
away from the holy Table ; and a less terrifying translation
in the German version of the Scriptures is said to have
driven Goethe from Church and altar. It will be well to
bear in mind that the word (K/H/XCI) translated " damnation "
in our Version of the Scriptures properly means "judg
ment " ; that the word " damnation," when our Version
was made, had not necessarily the meaning of eternal
condemnation, but meant simply condemnation; that this
condemnation is, immediately after, expressly stated by the
Apostle not to mean eternal condemnation, but temporal
chastisement, inflicted that we might escape the final destruc
tion of the soul.2 An unworthy reception, we also find
from the Apostle's language, means a reception of Holy
Communion without the slightest appreciation of the
spiritual meaning of the rite ; the treating it as an ordinary
supper; and the approaching that supper in a spirit of
selfishness, which is the exact opposite of the Spirit of
Christ. And even such a reception as this is not necessarily
fatal. A faithless, or impenitent, or inconsistent reception
of the Holy Supper may afterwards be repented of. It is
only wilful, deliberate, persistent rejection of Christ which
will ultimately quench His Spirit within us. While, there
fore, we should do all in our power to fit ourselves as care
fully as possible for eating Christ's Flesh and drinking His
Blood in the true spirit of a Christian believer, we need not
despair of "God's mercy through Christ" being shown to
our human infirmity. And coming in faith, in repentance,
in humility to God's most holy Table, we may hope thers to
find that Bread — that Flesh and Blood of our Saviour Christ
— which alone can "give life" to us and to "the world."3

1 1 Cor. xi. 29. 2 1 Cor. xi. 30-32.

3 John vi. 33, 51. See also chap. iv. sec. iv. in reference to the
Sacraments.

332 THE CREED.

NOTE TO CHAPTER VI., SECTION 2, ON THE DOCTRINE or THE
KEAL PRESENCE.

The doctrine which has obtained favour in a large and
influential section of the members of our Church since the
rise of the Tractarian movement is in advance of that which
was generally accepted by divines of the High Church school
before that movement began. It is usually expressed in these
words : — " The body of Christ is present in, with, or under the
form of bread and wine." It is thus a kind of third term between
Consubstantiation and Transubstantiation. "With" suggests
the former theory ; " under n implies the second ; " in " is con
sistent with either ; " or " denotes that those who use this
formula have not definitely decided which of the two theories,
or three forms of expression, they consider it best to adopt.
There are still further ambiguities in the formula. It is
uncertain whether the word "form" is, or is not, equivalent
to "species." Species, in the definition of Transubstantiation
given above,1 is equivalent to appearance. If /orm, in the
definition to which we are referring, means appearance, then
Transubstantiation is affirmed as a possible alternative. If the
word form is employed in its usual sense, it would imply that
the substance of the bread and of the wine still remains; and
in this case the formula would approximate to Consubstantiation.
The doctrine of the Spiritual Presence of Christ in the Sacra
ment regards the elements as channels whereby the Body and
Blood of Christ is conveyed. It does not undertake to say
where the Body and Blood of Christ are, or in what precise
manner they are conveyed to the soul. It simply states that
they who feed on the outward signs in the spirit and intention
required by Christ, do really and truly feed on His Flesh and
Blood, and enjoy a communication of His Being. On the fourth
theory, to which I have referred above, there is, and can be, no
local Presence of Christ's Body and Blood.

It were best, in speaking on this Divine mystery, to bear in

1 p. 322.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 333

mind the caution contained in the words of Bishop Ridley in
regard to another doctrine : " Sir, in this matter I am so fearful,
that I dare not go further than the text doth, as it were, bear me
in the hand." We have no information from Christ, or His
Apostles, where the Body and Blood of ChrLfc are, in the process
of our feeding upon Him, in what way they are connected with
the Bread and Wine, or how the process of feeding on His Body
and Blood is effected. Therefore, whosoever— whatever his
theory of the manner of the Presence may be — believes that in
this Holy Supper Christ does really give Himself to be the
food of the soul, and that he who partaketh of it faithfully
partakes of Him, holds the Catholic verity which Christ taught.1
At the same time, if persons, either from want of power to
conceive of abstract ideas, or in order to present doctrines with
clearness to uneducated minds, should be inclined to insist on
forms of expression which do not commend themselves to our
judgment, we have no right to stigmatize their views as
heretical, so long as they hold that Christ is " verily and indeed
taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper."
Yet it is well to bear in mind that God's working, in nature
and in grace, is mysterious and unseen ; that it is unwise,
and even irreverent, to inquire too closely into the "secret
things of the Lord our God " ; and, above all, we ought
not to lose sight of the fact that the less sensuous and the
more spiritual our conceptions of Divine processes are, the
better it is for true spiritual religion. Perhaps, too, the
loose use of the word "Sacrament" may have something
to do with the dissensions which have arisen on the subject.
Sometimes it is used accurately, to denote the whole rite;
sometimes — and this, be it carefully observed, only in the case
of Holy Communion — to denote the elements. It is used in this
latter sense in the well-known passage in Hooker's Ecclesiastical
Polity, which has occasioned so much controversy, " The Presence

1 We must, however, beware of non-natural explanations of our
Lord's language on this point, such as will be found mentioned on
p. 283, note 4. Such confusion of thought is most lamentable.
When our Lord says that we partake of His Flesh and Blood —
i.e. of His sanctified humanity— He must have really meant what
He said, or His words have no meaning at all.

334 THE CREED.

of Christ must be looked for, not in the Sacrament, but in the
worthy receiver of the Sacrament."1 In the Sacrament — that is,
in the whole ceremony as instituted by Christ — the Presence of
Christ may assuredly be looked for, and Hooker elsewhere most
distinctly asserts that it may be looked for ;2 but whether such a
Presence is in the elements may reasonably be doubted. As has been
seen above, there are many who hold that the Presence is not in the
elements themselves, but in their reception after a godly and faith
ful manner. There could be no more convincing demonstration of
the necessity of precision of language on so important a subject
than this unfortunate lapse on the part of our renowned theologian.
The reproach, however, of insufficiently guarded utterances on this
great subject does not rest on Hooker alone. Dr. Pusey, in defend
ing the expression " Christ's Body and Blood truly present under
the form of Bread and Wine," says that he has used it "because the
Homilies use it" ; but that he "has warned persons against" using
the words in a " physical or carnal " sense, and that when he has
spoken of "adoring Christ present," he " never meant to say any
thing about a local Presence, much less of the corporeal Presence of
Christ's natural Body and Blood." Moreover, he did not mean "to
encourage anything which could be interpreted into adoration of
the Host." (Letter to Bishop Wilberforce, in Pusey' s Life, iii. 305.)
But it may be said, with all respect to so profound a theologian and
so holy a man, that in his intense wish to protest against Puritan,
and even High Church Anglican, narrowness on this subject, he
did not always realize what use would be made of his statements
by men less profound than himself. We may rejoice that he has
vindicated the comprehensiveness of our Church by proving that
Consubstantiation, and even Transubstantiation itself in the sense
indicated above (p. 326), are not outside the limits of toleration in
our Communion. But ninety-nine out of every hundred persons
who use the words " present under the form of Bread and Wine "
are incapable of apprehending the nice metaphysical distinctions
which were never absent from the mind of Dr. Pusey when
he himself used it. When they use these expressions, they
use them in a local and material sense, not in a metaphysical

1 Eccl. Pol. V. Ixvii. 6.

2 Seep. 320. [It must be clearly understood that the word "Presence"
is never used in a local sense by any competent theologian. It in
variably, in such hands, means a Presence of a spiritual verity, dis
cerned by faith, and by faith alone.'}

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 335

or spiritual sense. To such persons the adoration of Christ,
mystically present, becomes the adoration of the Host present
locally, on the altar. And thus, instead of bearing in mind the
caution of the old Latin hymn, " Tantum ergo Sacramentum,"
that those who approach the Blessed Sacrament "must from
carnal thoughts be free," we find among us tendencies towards
gross, sensuous, and carnal apprehensions of the Divine mystery
in the Eucharist, as opposed to the teaching of the great leaders
of the Tractarian school, as to that of the Fathers to which they
strove so perseveringly to recall us.

It is, moreover, to be lamented that the Fathers have been so
loosely quoted on this great question. It is equally possible
to make a catena for or against the doctrine of the Presence of
Christ in the elements from their pages.1 When they speak of
the whole rite, and of the reality of the feeding on Christ in it,
they use the strongest possible language to assert this truth.
Sometimes they use expressions which imply that the Presence
is in the elements themselves. But then, on the contrary, they

1 Even Dr. Pusey's work on the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist
is not free from the reproach that it makes citations detached from
a context which materially modifies their language. This is, however,
chiefly the case in the earlier Fathers, and it is not intended to
obscure the fact that the elements are often called by the early
Fathers the "figure," or "representation," of Christ's Body and
Blood, but to concentrate the attention of the reader on the fact
that they all agreed in insisting upon a Heal Presence of Christ in
the Sacrament. The great Doctor of our Church would, however,
have made his meaning clearer had he substituted the words " Real
feeding on" for "Real Presence," and had he made it plain that tho
word Sacrament is not, properly speaking, applied to the elements,
but to the whole rite, whoreby they are solemnly blessed, offered, and
consumed by the faithful. The word "objective," too, which is
simply intended to convey the belief that it is not our faith, but God's
Spirit, that makes the Presence, has become confounded with " local,"
which Dr. Piisey emphatically rejects. Altogether, we may profitably
remember that attempts to define too closely the modus operandi of
God's dealings with mankind, and a contentious, intolerant, and
over-dogmatic spirit in pronouncing on subjects so difficult, have
been the source, as in regard to the Atonement, so in regard to the
Eucharist, of much suffering and doubt to individual souls, and of
a vast amount of confusion and disorder in the Church of God.

336 THE CREED.

frequently use language about the elements which modern
English theologians are accustomed to denounce as inadequate.
They speak of the bread and wine as "expressing," being
"symbols of," the Body and Blood of Christ — language which
falls short even of our modern idea that the bread and wine
are channels through which the Body and Blood of Christ are
conveyed. In the Catechetical lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem,
for instance, we find, in the course of a single page, expressions
which have been eagerly laid hold of by partisans of both sides
alike in the Eucharistic controversy, each side characteristically
seizing on those which supported its case, and neglecting the
rest, instead of seeing that the language in each class of passages
must be taken as qualifying what is to be found in the other.
From which may be deduced the inference that a treatise which
shall fully and fairly embody the complete teaching of the early
Church in the matter of the Eucharist can hardly be looked for
in the past, though it may possibly be hoped for in the future.

Some few passages from the most eminent of the Fathers on
this question are appended and translated. They have been
carefully compared with the original.

" They absent themselves from Eucharist and prayers, because
they do not confess that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our
Saviour Jesus Christ." IGNATIUS, Ad Smyrn. 7. See also Ad
Philadelph. 4.

"And this nourishment is called among us 'Eucharist,' and
no one is thought worthy to partake of it but those who believe
that the things we teach are true, and who have been washed in
the font on behalf of the remission of sins and unto regenera
tion, and who live according to Christ's commandments. Now
we do not receive these things as common bread and common
drink, but as Jesus Christ our Saviour was made flesh by the
Word of God, and took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also
the nourishment over which thanks have been given by means
of the word of prayer which He commanded, from which,
according to a transmutation (/texa/SoXT^), our flesh and blood
are nourished ; this, we are taught, is the Flesh and Blood of
Jesus Who was made flesh." JUSTIN MARTYR, 1st Ap. chap. 66.

"For if this (our human flesh) be not capable of salvation,
then did not the Blood of Christ redeem us, nor is the chalice
of the Eucharist the communication of His Blood, nor the bread

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 337

which we break the communication of His Body." IBENAEUS,
Adv. Haer. V. ii. 2. [This passage comes clown to us only in
a Latin translation. " Communicatio " is doubtless the transla
tion of the Greek Koivwla, communion. But Irenaeus' translator,
living at a period a little later than Irenaeus himself, obviously
shrinks from the absolute identification of the elements with
that which they conveyed.]

" When, therefore, the mingled cup, and that which hath been
made bread receiveth upon it the Word of God, and the Eucharist
becomes the Body of Christ, and from these the substance of
our flesh increases and subsists, how can they say that flesh is
incapable of the gift of God, which is Eternal Life ? " (Ib. sec. 3.)
[The argument here is against the Gnostics, who believed that
matter was essentially evil.] He goes on to say that it is the
Spirit of God which causes the grain of corn which falls into
the earth to multiply, and to become the Eucharist, by which
our bodies are nourished, being afterwards destined to be buried,
and to rise again.

In Book IV. chap, xviii. 5, in a similar passage he speaks of
the Eucharist as "consisting of two things (•jrpay/j.dTuv), an earthly
and a heavenly."

In a fragment preserved by Oecumenius, Irenaeus, speaking
of the errors into which the heathen sometimes fell from mis
interpreting the language of Christians about the Eucharist, says
that some heathen slaves, imagining that the Divine partaking
(TT]V Qdo.v n(-Ta\ij\f/iv) was in reality (T£ 6vn) a partaking of flesh
and blood, gave information against their masters to that effect.
Elsewhere, in a fragment, he calls the Body and Blood of Christ
the " antitypes " of the elements of bread and wine.

Clement of Alexandria (Instructor •, II. 2) says that "to drink
the Blood of Jesus is to be partaker of His immortality," and
that " those who partake of the Eucharist by faith are sanctified
in body and soul." And in the first book (chap, vi.) he speaks of
" blood " as figuratively termed wine, " and the Word as figura
tively described as meat and flesh and food, and bread and
blood and milk," and once again that "the Lord's Blood is
figuratively represented as milk." Again he speaks of our
Lord's words, " Eat My Flesh and drink My Blood," as "describ
ing by a metaphor the drinkable properties of faith." This
Father distinctly adopts a mystical treatment of the Eucharist.

338 THE CREED.

Tertullian, who wrote about the same time (the end of the
second and beginning of the third century), says that the bread
" is a figure of " the Body, and the wine similarly " is a figure
of" the Blood of Christ. Adv. Marcion. IV. 40. But he
regards the Sacrament as a real feeding upon Christ neverthe
less. De Oratione 19. He makes surprisingly few allusions to
the Eucharist in his works.

Cyprian (circa 250 A.D.), in his Epistle to Caecilius on Holy
Communion, declares that " that was wine " which Christ
"called His Blood" (chap. 9). In chap. 11, speaking against
those who celebrate with water only, he says that it cannot
"express" the Blood of Christ. In chap. 13 he says that "in
the wine the Blood of Christ is shown." But he regards the
Eucharist (chap. 15) as a real participation of Christ. We do
not find many allusions to the Eucharist in Cyprian. He
speaks of the Bread of the Eucharist becoming a cinder when
in the possession of unworthy Christians (De Lapsis, 26), from
which he draws the inference that Christ withdraws His
Presence from those who deny Him.

Origen, who was contemporary with Cyprian, has a remark
able passage in his Homily on St. Matthew xxvi. 26. He
says : " God the Word did not call that visible bread which
He held in His Hand His Body, but the word in the mystery
of which that bread had been broken. Nor did He call that
visible drink His Blood, but the word in the mystery of which
that drink had been poured out." This part of the Homily
011 St. Matthew is only to be found in an ancient Latin
translation ; and it has evidently been tampered with in the
interests of a supposed orthodoxy, for the Benedictine editor,
who thinks it does not sound quite Catholic, tells us he finds
it absent from previous editions of Origen's works, but that he
restores it to the text on the evidence of two ancient MSS., the
existence of which was known only to himself. One of these
MSS., he adds, is of the ninth century. A few lines previously,
Origen speaks of the "bread which Christ confessed to be His
Body," and the " wine which He confessed to be His Blood."

In his Homily on St. Matthew xi. 13, he says : " The food
which is sanctified by the Word of God and supplication, goes
into the belly and out into the draught, as far as the material
part of it is concerned ; but as far as regards the prayer which.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 339

is uttered over it, according to the analogy of the faith, it
becomes profitable, and the cause whereby the mind is enabled
to see clearly, looking for profit. Nor is it the material of the
bread, but the word which is spoken over it, which profits him
who does not eat it in a manner unworthy of the Lord. So
much concerning the typical and symbolical Body."

In his treatise, De Oratione, however, he most distinctly asserts
that Christ is the true Bread by which our souls are nourished,
and are thus "made Divine through God the Word Who was
in the beginning with God."

Athanasius seldom refers to the Eucharist ; but in his fourth
Epistle to Serapion, he says that the Lord, when the Jews were
scandalized at His language about the eating of His Body,
expressly gave them to understand that it \vas not a natural
but a spiritual feeding of which He spake. And this he sup
ports by our Lord's subsequent reference to His Ascension, and
to His declaration that the words He spake were Spirit and
Life. He did this "that He might withdraw them from cor
poreal conceptions, teaching them that what He had called flesh
was food from heaven, and the spiritual nourishment thereby
given."1

Basil, in his eighth Epistle, chap. 4, says : " We eat (rp^yoimev)
His Flesh and drink His Blood, and through His Incarnation
and perceptible Life become partakers of the Word and Wisdom."
And He adds that by flesh and blood Christ meant " His whole
mystic indwelling," and "signified His doctrine, consisting of
practical and natural and theological instruction."

The language of Cyril of Jerusalem is very remarkable. He
has been cited, and fairly cited, on both sides of the Eucharistic
controversy. For he says, in his twenty-second Catechetical
Lecture, chap. iii. : " Thus with all assurance we partake of
the Body and Blood of Christ. For the Body is given thee in
the figure (TVW^) of bread, and in the figure (TI/TTV) of wine the
Blood is given thee, that by partaking of the Body and Blood
of Christ thou mayest become one Body and one Blood with
Him." He then illustrates (chap, v.) the relation of the Bread
to Christ's Body by that of the Logos to the soul ; and he bids
the believer (chap, vi.) pay no attention to the bare elements,
bread and wine, for according to the language of the Lord they
1 See, however, passages cited on jp. 342.

340 THE ORBED.

are the Body and Blood of Christ. It is clear that he held a
real feeding on Christ, a real communication of His Flesh and
Blood to the believer, in the rite. But it seems equally clear
that he held no doctrine of the transmutation of the sign into
the thing signified. The truth appears to be that the early
doctors of the Church, when they spoke of the elements,
spoke of them as bread and wine, but when they spoke
of that which was present to faith, they passed beyond the
outward sign altogether, and discerned nothing save the thing
signified.

Augustine's language on the subject has not always been fairly
quoted, and appears at times inadequate. But this again only
proves that there has been no uniform Catholic tradition on the
question of the mode, as distinct from the fact of the real
Presence in the Eucharist,1 and that therefore the Church of
the present age has still a right to discuss the matter, and even,
if it seems desirable, to speculate upon it. In his treatise on
Christian Doctrine he speaks of the signs in use in the Christian
Church. Speaking of Baptism and the Eucharist, he remarks
that those who receive them hold them in reverence, not in
a carnal slavery, but rather in a spiritual liberty. (III. 9.)
To eat Christ's Flesh and Blood in a carnal sense would be
to commit a crime ; " therefore it is a figure," and means to
communicate in Christ's Passion, and to bear sweetly and
usefully in mind that Christ's Flesh was crucified and wounded
for us. (III. 16.) Here St. Augustine, as the Western Church
after him, seems to have held the doctrine of Christ's in
dwelling with a feebler grasp than is sometimes the case with
him, and to have spoken of the Eucharist as though it were
no more than a bare memorial. Again, "The Lord did not
fear to say, ' This is My Body,' when He was giving a sign
of His Body." (Contra Adimantum, XII. 3.) "He com
mended and handed to His disciples the figure of His Flesh
and Blood " in the Last Supper (" Convivium in quo corporis
et sanguinis sui figuram commendavit et tradidit." Enarr. in
Psalm iii.)

In another passage we observe the same apparent incon
sistency which has been noticed in the utterances of Cyril of
Jerusalem. It is found in Sermon 272. " How is this bread

1 i.e. in the ivhole rite; not necessarily in the elements*

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 341

His Body, and this cup, or rather what is contained in this
cup, His Blood ? My brethren, we call these things (ista)
Sacraments, because in them one thing is seen, another under
stood. That which is seen has a bodily form ; that which is
understood has a spiritual fruit. If, then, you wish to under
stand the Body of Christ, hear the Apostle saying to the
faithful, ' Ye are the Body of Christ and His members.' If,
then, you are the Body of Christ and His members, your
mystery (my&terium vestrum) is placed in the Lord's Table ;
you receive your mystery. . . . Why is this Body in the bread ?
We say nothing of ourselves ; we hear the Apostle's words,
saying, 'We, being many, are all one Bread and one Body'
. . . only one Bread. What is that one Bread ? Many are
one Body ; remember that the bread is not made of one grain,
but of many." (See also Sermon 352 ; Commentary on St. John's
Gospel, Tr. xxvi. Nos. 11-20.) But in Sermon 227 he says
"that bread which you see on the altar, when it has been
consecrated by the Word of God, is the Body of Christ ; that
cup, or rather that which the cup contains, is the Blood of
Christ." St. Chrysostom frequently expresses himself in similar
language, and in his Homily on 1 Cor. xi. 27, speaks of our
" touching the Body of Christ with our tongue."

We will conclude with the well-known passage in THEODORET'S
Eranistes, cited by Bishop Pearson, in which he uses the outward
and inward parts of the Eucharist to illustrate his view of the
union of the Godhead and Manhood in Christ. He says — the
translation is Bishop Pearson's (On tJie Creed, p. 163, note) :
" The bread and wine after the consecration leave not their
own nature, but remain in their former substance, shape, and
form." Yet nevertheless he calls them the Body and Blood of
Christ. In the same note Pearson cites Gelasius in favour of the
doctrine that the substance of the bread and wine is preserved
(non desinit), though by the Sacrament " we are made partakers
of the Divine Nature." He mentions how "Caute" is printed
here in the margin of the Bibliotheca Patrum, just as the passage
above cited from Origen is either omitted, or ingeniously ex
plained away by a number of distinctions too refined for the
ordinary intellect to follow.

There are, however, many passages in the Fathers which seem
to point to the fourth view of the Eucharist, to which reference

342 1«E CREED.

has already been made. This view has been held by some
divines of repute. The late Archdeacon Freeman held it,
though by saying, without explanation, that it is the Dead
Body of Christ which is present in the Eucharist, he repelled
many who might otherwise have been disposed to consider the
theory. Dr. Vogan has maintained it in a treatise of some
length and importance, but unfortunately somewhat polemical
in character. Its best expression in the works of any English
divine of note is to be found in Bishop ANDREWES' Sermons:
" A live lamb will not suit. It is a Lamb slain must be our
Passover. We are carried back to Christ at tJie very instant, and
in the act of His Offering, and by the incomprehensible power of His
Eternal Spirit we are incorporate into His Death" Cyprian, in
his letter to Caecilius,1 speaks of the " immolated victim " in the
Eucharist. Athanasius takes the same view repeatedly in his
Paschal Letters — he says very little about the Eucharist else
where. In the thirty-ninth, he says of the Christian Passover :
" We have been — nay, we are — invited to that great and supra-
mundane Supper which sufficeth for all creation — to the Passover,
I say, the Slain Christ" (rbv TvOevra xp^™")- And he adds,
"since Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us." So also in
his eleventh Paschal Letter, chap, xiv.2 In the Epistle of the
Nicene Fathers to the Church at large, given by Gelasius of
Cyzicus (II. chap, xxx.),3 we find the following passage : " Let
us not meanly (raTreu/ws) give heed to the bread and wine lying
before us, but let us lift up our understanding (dtdvoiav), and
perceive (vo-fi<rw^v} by faith the Lamb of God Who taJceth away the
sins of the world, lying upon that Sacred Table, sacrificed unsacri-
ficially by the priests " (aOvrws VTT& rdv iepewv dvbfievov}.

Clement of Alexandria says : " To the sons who approach,
the Father giveth the fatted Calf, and slayeth it, and it is eaten."

So St. Gregory the Illuminator says: "Thou didst call the
world to the Sacrifice of Thy Son, and saidst, ' My Calf is slain,
and My Feast is prepared.' . . . Thou didst satisfy all the ends
of the world with His Life-giving Body."

1 Ep. Ixii., or in some editions Ixiii.

2 So also, in the fifth Paschal Letter, he points out how, under the
New Covenant, the Flesh and Blood of Christ have been substituted
for the flesh of the Paschal Lamb.

3 He was Bishop of Caesarea, circa 476.

CATHOLIC CHURCH. 343

Ephrem Syrus says: "From death, which is very bitter, there
gushed forth to us the sweetness of the life-giving Food." And
again, " Lo, Thou art sacrificed upon our Table."

St. James of Nisibis says : " When His Body was eaten, and
His Blood drunk, He was counted among the dead"

St. Jerome says (Ep. 21, to Damasus) : "The fatted Calf,
sacrificed for the salvation of the penitent, is the Saviour Him
self, by Whose Flesh we are daily fed, Whose Blood we drink."

And St. Isaac the Teacher : " She [Faith] showed me a Body
slain, and placed thereof within my lips, and cried to me sweetly,
* See what it is thou art eating.' She gave me the pen of the
Spirit, and bade me subscribe ; and I took, I wrote, and I
confessed, ' This is the Body of God.3 "

St. Chrysostom, too, says (De Coem. et Gruce): "Why press
forward, when, as it is, thou beholdest the Lamb slain ? "

And Cyril of Alexandria says : " The fatted Calf is sacrificed ;
the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world is
slain."1

Besides these passages, there is the well-known one from the
De Sacerdotio of St. Chrysostom, quoted by almost everyone who
treats of the teaching of the Fathers on the Eucharist, in which
he speaks of the worshipper beholding " the Lord sacrificed and
lying, and the priest standing by the sacrifice and praying."
St. Chrysostom continually uses this language. In his De Coem.
et Cruce, he again speaks of " the Lamb slain and sacrificed." So
also in his Homilies, On the Statutes, "Where Christ lies slain"
(xv. 14). He calls it "the holy Passover." (On the Statutes, Horn,
xii. 14 ; xx. 19.) And he continually speaks of Christ "lying"
(/cet/ieW) on the altar, sometimes as a sacrificed Victim, sometimes
as a Babe in the Manger. It is clear from this that St. Chrysostom
did not hold the Presence of the glorified Body of Christ in the
Eucharist. Though it must be admitted that the Fathers but rarely
enlarge on this view of the Eucharist, as a feeding on a slain Victim,
yet it may not unfairly be supposed to be involved in the fact
that the Eucharist is frequently described by ancient authors as
** novum pascha novae legis." And if the Jewish Passover was
the feeding on a sacrificed victim, the Christian Passover might
reasonably be the same. There is thus ancient authority for

1 These eight passages are taken from Dr. PUSEY'S citations from
the Fathers, in his Treatise, On the Real Presence,

344 THE CREEl).

the belief that the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist
may be His slain Body and shed Blood, mystically present
to faith, while He, nevertheless, the Lamb there beheld as
slain (us fofay^voir), is continually present in His glorified
Humanity, both in heaven above and in the members of
His Church below, by His Spirit. "I am the First and the
Last, and the Living One ; and I was dead, and behold I am
alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades."
(Rev. i. 17, 18.) Even Roman Catholic divines sometimes favour
this view. Canon Gore, in his Roman Catholic Claims, p. 177,
cites a passage from the Love of Jesus, by Canon Gilbert, p. 41
(a work which has the imprimatur of Cardinal Manning), to the
following effect : " We hold that here [at the Altar] Thy Body
and Blood are separated, and that Thou art, as it were, again
nailed to the Cross, and presented to heaven as a holocaust for
the propitiation of the sins of the world." But the Roman
Church inclines to the doctrine of a repetition of the Sacrifice of
the Cross, whereas theologians of the Reformed Churches would
substitute the subjective realization, by faith, of that one
Sacrifice. The student should carefully read, and weigh, the
full citations from the Fathers in Norris' Rudiments of Theology,
Appendix, chap, vi., if he wishes to escape from narrow and
one-sided views on a great and difficult question.

SECTION III.

ON MINISTERS IN THE CHURCH

It seems scarcely necessary, in an elementary treatise of
this kind, to demonstrate at any length the fact that in
the Christian Church there has always been a body of men
commissioned to minister to their brethren in holy things.
Such a fact would seem inseparable from the idea of a
visible society. Indeed, it may be questioned whether any
religion could possibly continue to exist without some
persons officially authorized to expound its principles and
offer its worship. Accordingly, we find that our Lord
"appointed twelve, that they might be with Him, and
that He might send them forth to preach, and to have

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 345

authority (power, A.V.) to cast out devils."1 To these
twelve, after His Resurrection, He committed the task of
founding and spreading His Church.2 We may also infer
from the language of our Lord, recorded by St. John, that
the power of ruling the Church was committed to them.
He sent them, as His Father had sent Him. They had
power to remit and retain sins.3 And from a passage in
St. Matthew's Gospel4 we find that He had also endowed
them with the power to bind and loose, that is to prescribe
and to dispense with the rules which Christians were to
observe. Certain it is that the Apostles did rule the
Church which they were commissioned to found. The
whole narrative in the Acts of the Apostles establishes this
fact; and St. Paul's language on various occasions bears
further witness to it.5 When the labours of the Apostles
became too great to enable them efficiently to attend to
each department of Church work, they appointed others
to discharge the less important functions.6 Soon afterwards
we read of "elders," There can be little doubt that these
"elders" exercised the same functions of authority and
government which belonged to the elders in the Jewish
Church.7 Those who appointed them were Jews, and they

1 Mark iii. 14, 15. 2 Matt, xxviii. 19, 20 ; Acts x. 42.

3 John xx. 23. Yet see p. 364. 4 Matt, xviii. 18.

5 e.g., 1 Cor. iv. 19 ; v. 3-5 ; vii. 12, 17 ; xi. 2, 34 ; xiv. 27-31, 34,
37. 2 Cor. x. 11 ; xiii. 2, 10. Of. 3 John 10.

8 Acts vi. Some have denied that the order of Deacons was
founded on this occasion. It must be confessed that St. Luke does
not expressly say so ; but the fact appears sufficiently evident if we
compare his narrative with the after history of the Church.

7 Mr. Hatch, in his able Hampton Lectures, is inclined to the belief
that the Apostles and the post-Apostolic divines favoured Gentile
rather than Jewish models. But the theory seems rather to have
novelty and ingenuity than probability to support it. The Apostles
were Jews. With heathen institutions they had but slight acquaint
ance. Those institutions which were Apostolic in their origin would
seem to be more naturally explained, where possible, by a reference to
Jewish than to Gentile sources.

THE CREED.

would naturally bring their Jewish ideas into the organiza
tion of the Christian Church, the more especially as they
had been brought up to believe, and had the authority of
our Lord to support them in the belief, that the Jewish
polity was Divinely appointed and Divinely guided. The
first mention of elders is in the Church at Antioch.1 The
Church there appears to have been under their general
supervision, save when it was honoured by the presence of
an Apostle.2 When St. Paul founded the Gentile Churches,
he left them under the care of elders specially appointed.
He sent for the Ephesian elders to Miletus, and gave them
a charge.8 And apparently there were elders associated
with the Apostles in the work at Jerusalem, unless we
hold that the elders who met the Apostles in order to
discuss the question of the circumcision of believers, were
the elders of other Churches. St. James and St. Peter
mention the order of elders.4 St. Paul appears to have
preferred the term bishop (i.e. overseer) as better known
to the Gentile world.5 Thus he tells the elders, who are
summoned by him to Ephesus, that God has made them
"overseers" or "bishops" of the flock.6 When he tells
Titus that he had left him at Crete to "appoint elders in
every city," he proceeds at once to speak of these persons
as bishops.7 In writing to Timothy, the word bishop, not
elder, is used.8 Similarly the Epistle to the Philippians is
addressed to the Church, with its "bishops and deacons."9
St. Paul further gives special instructions to Timothy and
Titus concerning the choice of both bishops and deacons,10

1 Acts xi. 30.

2 Gal. ii. 11. St. Paul's relation to the Church at Antioch is dis
cussed in p. 353.

3 Acts xx. 27. 4 James v. 14 ; 1 Peter v. 1.

5 The word TpD, frequently translated ^TTIO-ACOTTOS in the LXX.,
is, however, a common expression in Hebrew.

6 Acts xx. 28. 7 Titus i. 5, 7. 8 1 Tim. iii. 1, 2.
9 Phil. i. 1. 10 1 Tim. iii. ; Titus i.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 347

and adds some advice to Timothy about the proper way of
exercising supervision over the elders.1

It is true that some, in view of the priesthood attributed
in the Scriptures to all members of the Church of Christ,2
have argued that there could be no special order of men set
apart to minister to Christians in holy things, but that the
power to rule and teach, and perform all other priestly
functions, is given to every member of the Church. But
apart from the disorder such a theory would introduce into
a society which, as we learn, was founded upon a principle
of order,3 we have evidence in the Scriptures that such an
inference from the language of the New Testament is an
unsound one; for it will not be denied that in the Jewish
Church there was a special order of men appointed to
minister in holy things. Yet in Exodus xix. 6, God is
represented as using precisely the same expression to
Moses about the Jewish people which the Apostles have
used concerning the members of the Christian Church.
The language of Scripture, therefore, while it distinctly
asserts the priesthood of the whole body, does not assert
it in such a sense as to exclude the ministry of a set of
men specially set apart to guide and instruct the members
of that body.4 And beside the indisputable evidence which

1 1 Tim. v. 1, 17, 19. a 1 Peter ii. 9. Rev. i. 6 ; v. 10.

3 1 Cor. xiv. 33, 40.

4 It may be well to advert to the extraordinary confusion of
thought involved in this reasoning. All Christians are priests (iepets) ;
therefore it is contended that the Christian Church can have no
TrpefffivTepoi or liriffKoiroi. Because no persons were specially com
missioned to offer sacrifices as the heathen priests were, therefore
the Christian Church has neither appointed rulers, guides, nor
teachers. And another ambiguity makes confusion worse confounded.
We translate the Greek word iepevs by priest, which is a contraction
of the Greek word Trpecr/Si/repos, which signifies elder. Very few dis
putants contrive to escape safely out of such a succession of traps for
loose reasoners as is presented here.

348 THE CUBED.

has already been given, and the express declaration of St.
Paul that God "gave some to be apostles, some to be
prophets, and some to be pastors and teachers,"1 we have
his further express statement that "all" were not "apostles,
prophets, or teachers."2 It would seem, therefore, to be
tolerably evident that the visible society which Christ has
founded has never been without its special rulers and
guides, and that these rulers and guides in the first in
stance derived their authority from the choice of Christ
Himself. As the Christian Church was designed to have,
and may historically be shown to have had, a continuous
existence since its foundation, we may naturally ask from
the teachers who claim thus to guide and teach us, some
proof that they can trace their origin continuously back to
the first founders of the Church. How that connection is
to be traced is a matter into which we shall enter presently.
All that is contended now is, that as the Christian Church
has been a continuous society, we may expect to find some
evidence of continuity in the organization of that society ;
and this continuity has been called the Apostolical succes
sion — that is, the historical continuity of the society as
manifested by the orderly succession of its rulers from the
original founders of the Church of God.

The doctrine of the Apostolical succession, as usually
received among us at the present day, is well and clearly
put in the words of the well-known hymn:

" His twelve Apostles first He made

His ministers of grace ;
And they their hands on others laid,
To fill in turn their place.

1 Eph. iv. 11. The question here, it is to be observed, is not con
cerning the number of orders in the ministry, nor of the name given
to each order, but simply whether there existed in the Apostolic
Church any set of men whatever to whom special functions were
entrusted. 2 1 Cor. xii. 29.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 349

"So age by age, and year by year,

His grace is handed on ;
And still the holy Church is here,
Although her Lord is gone."

In other words, we are taught that from the Apostles' times
to our own, every bishop has been consecrated to his sacred
office by the laying on of hands of another bishop,1 and
that without such laying on of hands no man may presume
to exercise the office of a bishop. This view has in its
favour the arguments of probability and long prescription.
It also appeals to our natural sense of symmetry. It has
been further defended on the ground that authority descends
from above, and cannot be conferred from below. A bishop
may make a presbyter; but it stands to reason that no
presbyter, nor any number of presbyters, can make a
bishop. This theory, from its high antiquity and innate
reasonableness, demands the highest respect from us, and
it may possibly be the correct one. Nevertheless, it must
be confessed that it lacks the completeness of historical
evidence and Oecumenical authority required in order to
constitute it a necessary article of the Catholic faith.
The earliest evidence alleged in behalf of it is a passage
in Cyprian, which states that in nearly all the provinces
a custom which had been handed down from the Apostles
was observed — namely, that all the bishops of the province
should assemble, and that in their presence hands should be
laid on the person to be admitted to the office of bishop.2

1 The Eastern Church requires the concurrence of at least three
bishops, according to the fourth Canon of the Council of Nicaea.
The Western Church has, in later times, regarded one as sufficient.
But the Council of Aries, A.D. 314, prescribes three. (See Canon 20
of that Council. ) The Apostolical Constitutions prescribe that three,
or, at the least, two bishops shall take part in the consecration of a
bishop. (See III. 20 ; VIII. xlvii. 1. )

2 Ep. Ixvii. 5. It will be observed that even this statement falls
short of the doctrine expressed in the verse of the hymn quoted above,

350 THE CREED.

That the custom of Episcopal consecration, by laying on
of Episcopal hands, was the established rule in Cyprian's
time, appears from many passages in his letters, and from
the mention by Eusebius of the fact that when Novatian
was elected rival Bishop of Rome to Cornelius, about
A.D. 250, three bishops had to be summoned from the
most out-of-the-way parts of Italy to consecrate him to the
office.1 But whether the consecration of all bishops by
other bishops was from the first regarded as absolutely
essential to the validity of Episcopal orders, or whether
their presence was originally only desired as a guarantee
to the Church at large of the fairness of the election —
bishops being, at that time, chosen by the vote of the
members of the Church — we have no evidence whatever.
The passage in St. Cyprian, on which the theory depends,
was not written before A.D. 254, 2 and the language itself
is not a little vague.3 It seems, at least, a somewhat
slender foundation on which to build an indispensable
principle of the Catholic Church, the first necessity in
regard to which is that it must be proved to have been
held and taught "ubique, semper, et ab omnibus." The
records of the first and second century are absolutely silent

It is, of course, quite possible that the silence of the early Church on
the absolute necessity of Episcopal consecration may be due to the
fact that the principle was taken for granted. But it is obviously
equally possible that the contrary may be the case.

1 EUSEBIUS, Eccl. Hist. vi. 43.

2 It was written after the accession of Stephen to the bishopric of
Rome.

3 It has been contended that " fere per provincias universas" means
that it was not always possible to gather together all the bishops of
the province, and that some provinces were content with some of
them only. But (1) it seems hardly possible that in any province
it would be possible to get all the bishops together at one time, and
(2) though the explanation is a probable one, it does not seem
altogether certain. Moreover, Cyprian does not say all the bishops
of the province, but "episcopi proximi quique."

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 351

on the mode in which Bishops were appointed. Ignatius,
it is true, does, before his decease, recommend Polycarp to
hold a Council at Antioch, with a view to filling that
important see when it became vacant, as it shortly must.
But he says nothing about the way in which the new
bishop was to be set apart to his sacred office. It is quite
within the limits of possibility that the bishop, in the
earliest times of all, was simply the president of the com
munity, elected, however, or appointed for life. There
seems, moreover, ground for supposing that in the first
century some communities had bishops, and that some
were governed only by presbyters.1 It is quite possible

1 " In the account of the feuds at Corinth, no mention is made of
any single presiding ruler of the Church; and we must suppose,
either that there was a vacancy in the bishopric at this time, or that
the bishop's office had not yet assumed at Corinth the prominence
which we find a few years later in Asia Minor. It should be
remembered that when the letter was written, the last of the twelve
Apostles — if the best ancient tradition is to be credited — was still
living, the centre of a body of Christian disciples, at Ephesus."
Bishop LIGHTFOOT, St. Clement of Rome, i. 352. Professor Langen,
of Bonn, the Old Catholic historian, in his History of the Church to
the Pontificate of Leo /., p. 81, says that the government of the
Corinthian Church at the time of Clement's letter was not monarchical,
but collegiate. He believes that at this time the Roman Church was
also governed by a College of Presbyters, and refers to Lipsius and
Wieseler as supporting the opinion that the different order in which
the names of Linus, Anencletus, and Clement stand in various
catalogues of the Roman bishops is due to the fact that they were
simultaneously ruling the Roman Church. This is not, however,
Bishop Lightfoot's opinion. The date of Clement's Epistle, according
to Bishop Lightfoot, is A.D. 95 or 96. Professor Langen believes that
by the laying on of hands the Apostles committed full powers of
governing the Church to the presbyters, but that this power was
afterwards vested in one single person. (Ibid., pp. 82-83.) This
appears to be the view of Jerome and Chrysostom. A writer, I
may add, in the Church Quarterly Review, No. 77, p. 184, says :
"Episcopacy was not yet localized at Corinth" (i.e. in Clement's
time). ''The assent of the whole Church— that is, the clergy and.

352 THE CREED.

that the Church, which existed for centuries without an
authorized form of Creed, and without an authorized list
of the books of Canonical Scripture, might not — at least,
during the lifetime of the Apostles, and so long as it
remained possible to appeal in case of necessity to any
of them — have had in every locality precisely the same
form of government. The very earnestness with which
Ignatius insists on the duty of doing nothing without the
bishop may point, as some have supposed, to the existence
of a tendency, at the time when he was writing, to look
on the bishop as being, after all, in no way superior to
his brother presbyters. Some have further contended
that the strength of the language of Ignatius points to
the Episcopate as of recent institution, and as indicative of
his deep conviction that in the establishment of such an
office would be found the only satisfactory guarantee for
Christian unity. It seems, however, on the whole, most
probable that, as Eusebius and Irenaeus tell us,1 and as the
Epistles of Timothy and Titus appear to prove, Episcopacy
had been instituted by the Apostles, but that, the last of
the Apostolic band having been but a short time removed
from the Church, Ignatius had seen signs of a tendency

laity of the Corinthian community — had been a natural or necessary
concomitant of the ordination of presbyters ; but the local body did
not confer the presbyterate, and could not take it away." This
writer seems to think that the Corinthian presbyters were ordained
by the Apostles themselves, and only by the Apostles. But there is
no evidence whatever that this was the case. Mr. Strong, chaplain
to the Bishop of Durham, thinks (Manual of Theology, p. 404) that
some Churches may have originally been governed by Colleges of
Presbyters. From all this it will be seen that it is extremely difficult
to fix on a theory of the transmission of Episcopal powers, which has
been held "ubique, semper, et ab omnibus."

1 IRENAEUS, Against Heresies, III. iii. 3, 4. He expressly states
that Linus at Rome, and Polycarp at Smyrna (with the latter he says
he was personally acquainted), were appointed bishops by Apostles.
See also EUSEBIUS, Eccl llist. III. 36.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 353

unduly to disparage the Episcopate now that the last of the
Apostles had only just been removed from this world— one
who had leaned on the Saviour's breast at supper, and to whom
had been vouchsafed a mysterious vision of things to come.
Scripture, however, says very little on the question how the
early bishops were appointed. We do not know how Timothy
and Titus were formally designated to their posts. St. Paul
"besought"1 one, and "left"2 the other to discharge functions
clearly Episcopal, as we now understand the phrase. The
reference to the laying on of hands in Timothy's case refers,
in one place almost certainly, in the other most probably, to
his ordination as presbyter.3 And the moment of St. Paul's
own appointment to the office of Apostle is by no means
certain. If the ceremony at Antioch, described in Acts xiii.,
were his ordination — and he does not seem to have com
menced his career as an Apostle until after that ceremony — •
then there does not seem to have been anyone above the rank
of presbyter who took part in it. Moreover, the facts that the
majority of the best authorities, admitted to be such even
in the Church of Rome, regard the bishop as only superior
to the presbyter in honour and dignity, not in order,4 and
that the Episcopate is not one of the seven orders in the

1 Or " exhorted." 1 Tim. i. 3.

2 Titus i. 5.

8 ITim. iv. 14; 2 Tim. i. 6.

4 So MORINUS tells us (De Sacris Ordinationibus, pt. 3, ex. 3,
chap, i.) He cites, in support of this view, Clement of Rome,
Polycarp, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Firmilian,
Ambrose, Chrysostom, Augustine, Jerome, Theodoret, and others, as
well as Aquinas and Scotus, and other of the schoolmen. ANSELM,
moreover, says, in his Commentary on the Epistle to Titus, chap, i.,
that bishops are superior to priests " rather by custom than by Divine
institution." The language of Jerome and Chrysostom is also very
express on the same side of the question. Mediaeval and modern
Roman divines regard the power to "offer Christ," vested in the
priesthood, as a power of the highest possible order in the Church,

2 A

354 THE CREED.

Church of Rome, seem to give at least some support to the
theory that the bishop was at first — save, of course, when
he received his appointment from an Apostle — simply the
elected president of the Christian community, solemnly
appointed to that office by the suffrage of the community,
and needing no more than that solemn choice to enable him
to exercise the functions of his office. This view may be
thought to derive some further support from the fact that no
one appears to have been ordained to the priesthood by the
bishop alone, but by the bishop in conjunction with all the
presbyters present. As for the theory that authority must
in all cases be conferred from above, and cannot be imparted
from below, the following considerations appear to cast some
doubt upon it. There is no branch of the Christian Church
in which the principle of authority is more paramount, and
in which it is more strongly believed to have descended
from above, and to be exercised under Divine guidance,
than in the Church of Home. Such authority is now
believed to be vested in one person, namely the Pope.
Yet the Papal authority is not conferred by pope on pope,
but is supposed to descend from on high on the person
chosen by the cardinals. There would seem therefore, in
the absence of any direct declaration of the Bible or the
Church to the contrary, no valid reason why the episcopal
office, possessing an authority far more restricted in its
character, may not have been conferred upon the person
chosen by Christian congregations to preside over them,
in virtue of such choice, and not of necessity by trans
mission from those who previously possessed it.

It is true that there is a well-known passage in Irenaeus
which traces the successions in the Churches by the
enumeration of their chief ministers. This has frequently
been supposed to teach the doctrine that the bishop's office
is transmitted to him by virtue of his consecration by

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 355

another bishop.1 But when this passage is examined, it
is found to teach nothing of the kind. It is the continuity
of the community, not the mode by which the episcopal
office is transmitted, which Ircnaeus has in view. The
Bishops of the communities he mentions were all dead
before their successors were appointed, and as he does not
give the names of the consecrators, we do not know by
whom or how they were set apart to their office. There
is a passage from Tertullian, again, which at first sight
appears to embody the theory that Episcopal consecration
alone can make a bishop.2 He demands that the heretics
shall "unfold the roll of their bishops," and show that the
first of them was appointed by an Apostle. Such men, and
they only, can be regarded as " transmitters of the Apostolic
seed." But here again it is only of the orderly succession
of the rulers and the soundness of the doctrine which they
have received and handed on that Tertullian is speaking,
not of the mode in which they are appointed to their office.
Of this he says nothing. He only regards it as necessary
for the proper transmission of the doctrines of Christianity
that they shall have been handed down in a Church whose
first bishop was appointed by an Apostle. Of the mode of
appointment in other Churches he says nothing. He does
not even say how bishops were appointed in the sees which
were of Apostolic foundation. It is at least conceivable
that in the earliest sub-Apostolic times a presbyter,
duly ordained by the bishop and presbyters to the
presbyterate, might have been set apart by the com
munity to his office as its president, an office involving
no new powers save those involved in such presidency.
And this supposition derives some additional probability
from the fact, to which reference has been made above,
that the office of the bishop, according to many of the
1 Against Heresies, III. i. 2 De Praescr. Haer. 32.

356 THE CREED.

highest authorities even in the Church of Rome, as well
as Chrysostom and Jerome, does not differ in essence, but
only in rank and dignity, from that of the presbyter.1

1 No notice need be taken here of the passage in which Jerome declares
that the choice of the presbyters was sufficient to constitute a patriarch
of Alexandria, for we find from his Apology against the Arians that
whatever the custom of election at Alexandria may have been, Athanasius
was consecrated bishop in the ordinary way. The force, however, of the
considerations urged above has not been without its weight with Canon
Gore, whose orthodoxy on the point will be generally admitted. %In his
lectures at St. Asaph he says : " In regard to the doctrine of apostolic
succession, I must say one other word. It has been in history too
much identified with the threefold form of the ministry. I believe
myself that the evidence, as we have it at present, points cogently to
this conclusion : that since Apostolic days there have been always
three orders of the ministry, not only deacons and presbyters (or
bishops, according to the earliest use of the term), but also ministers
of the apostolic order, superior to the presbyters, such as Timothy and
Titus, or those ' prophets ' of whom we hear in the earliest Christian
literature. I believe that what occurred was the gradual localization
in particular Churches of this apostolic order of ministers, which
previously had not usually been so localized, and that there was no
time when presbyters or presbyter bishops had either the supreme
authority of government or the power to ordain, the change which
took place consisting only in the localization of an order of men
previously exercising a more general supervision, and the reservation of
the name 'bishop' to these localized apostolic officers. [The italics
throughout are mine.] But there are certain facts which have led
some good authorities to suppose that at one time all the presbyters
in some Churches held together the chief authority in government
and the power to ordain, the ' episcopate ' being, as it were, * in com
mission' among them. Now this theory has, I think, from the point
of view of ecclesiastical principle, been too much discussed. It does not
affect the principle of apostolic succession in the least. The principle
is that no man in the Church can validly exercise any ministry y except
such as he has received from a source running back ultimately to the
apostles, so that any ministry which a person takes upon himself to
exercise, which is not covered by an apostolically received commission,
is invalid. Now, if the order of presbyters at any time held the right
to ordain, that was because it had been entrusted to them by apostolic
men. It no more disturbs the principle of apostolic succession than
if your lordship ordained all the presbyters in this diocese to-day to

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 357

It is not of course intended, in what has been said,
to suggest that there ought to be any alteration of the
laws which have been in existence in the Church for
sixteen or seventeen centuries; for, first of all, it is not
contended that simple election ever was the custom, but
only that we have not sufficient evidence to establish
the contrary proposition as absolutely certain. And next,
however bishops may in the earliest ages have been
appointed to their office, it is clear that the episcopate
has been practically universal from the beginning. As
long as a single Apostle remained, his paramount authority
could be appealed to on any question that might arise.
As soon as the last Apostle was withdrawn, the Churches
with one consent supplied his place by bishops.1 In regard
to the rule of our Church, which requires a bishop to be
consecrated by an archbishop and two of his suffragans, it
is not only of time-honoured antiquity, but it expresses that
external consent which alone can secure to a bishop his proper
place and recognition in the universal Church. The only

episcopal functions. There would ensue a great deal of inconvenience
and confusion, but nothing that would violate the principle of apostolic
succession. On the other hand, the departure from this principle is
manifest when presbyters in the sixteenth or subsequent century took
upon themselves to ordain other presbyters. They were taking on
themselves an office which, beyond all question, they had not
received — which was not imparted to them in their ordination.
There had been a perfectly clear understanding for many centuries
what did and what did not belong to a presbyter's office. This is the
principle which it is essential to maintain, and its title-deeds lie in
the continuous record of Church history." It may be added that
Morinus (loc, cit.} states that, some authorities in the Roman Church
believe that a presbyter can ordain if commissioned to do so by a
bishop. [Since the first edition of this work appeared, there has been
considerable progress in the direction of a less rigid Episcopalianism.]
1 The first bishops in all the more important sees were, however, un
questionably appointed by the Apostles themselves. This we learn from
Irenaeus, who was specially well informed on the point. (See p. 352.)

358 THE CREED.

practical effect at the present time of the view which has been
suggested as a possible alternative to the more rigid theory of
the Apostolical succession, would be to cause us to scrutinize
less closely the mode of transmission of the episcopal office
in Churches which may have gone through times of especial
difficulty and trial, and to enable us to recognize the choice
of the Church in cases where from necessity, and not
from defiance of primitive rule and custom, all the eccle
siastical regulations existing at any particular period of the
Church's history do not appear to have been scrupulously
observed.1 There is one point of view, however, in which
it ought to be carefully weighed. In the present divided
condition of Christendom, it is of vital importance that we
should only insist on the unconditional acceptance by God's
people of such articles of faith as can be proved to have
been explicitly held and taught in Apostolic times. If
we press as a necessary doctrine of the Catholic faith a
principle which rests upon an insecure historical or dog
matic foundation, we predispose many to reject the whole,
and thus do what in us lies to keep alive the miserable
dissensions which are a reproach to the Christian Church.

We are bound to confess that very little precise information
about ecclesiastical rules is to be found in the best and wisest
and earliest of the Fathers. Nor does the Church, in the
earliest times of all, appear to have proceeded upon any
very hard and fast lines. Under the guidance of the Divine
Spirit, the company of the baptized, rejoicing in the
possession of a Life coming down from above, seems to
have been led, by slow degrees, to frame such regulations

1 Thus we need not, if this view be adopted, take all the trouble
which we have been compelled to take to establish the fact of Bishop
Barlow's consecration. Yet we may be permitted the remark that if
Barlow were not consecrated in the usual way, it would be difficult to
understand what laws, if any, were in force in England in the reign of
Henry the Eighth.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 359

as should be able to stand the test of ages — regulations
which we Catholic Churchmen of to-day thankfully accept
and transmit to our descendants, without inquiring too
closely, or defining too exactly, in the absence of full
historical information, whether they did, or did not, form
a part of the original and necessary constitution of the
Church.

Whatever difficulties, however, a rigid historical criticism
may suggest as to the original mode of appointment of
bishops, we may safely assert that there has always been a
threefold order of ministers in the Church of Christ. The
life of St. John, one of the founders and first rulers of the
Church, lasted throughout the whole of the first century.
And whatever may have been the form of government in the
various communities in the Christian Church during his life
time, the episcopal form of government had evidently become
general, if not absolutely universal, by the first twenty
years of the second century.1 From that time onward
there is not a single hint which points to the existence of
any form of government but the episcopal. "We may
therefore regard episcopacy, including the era of the
Apostolic superintendence of the Churches, as the general
rule in the Catholic Church down to the Reformation.
We may not be able to establish this mathematically as
an abstract proposition, but for all practical purposes it
may be regarded as a fact. With regard to the other
two orders, it is true that in the earlier Epistles their
identity is obscured under a number of names. But in
the later Epistles — those to the Philippians, Timothy,
and Titus — we find them more clearly defined, save that
the term bishop is as yet applied to the presbyters or

1 We must not forget that IGNATIUS (Ep. to Trallians, chap, iii.)
expressly states that a Church was not so called in his day, unless it
possessed bishops, presbyters, and deacons.

360 THE CREED.

elders.1 But by the aid of a passage in the recently
discovered Doctrine of the Ttvelve Apostles, a work of the
first century, we shall find ourselves able, to some extent,
to classify the various titles we find in the earliest Christian
writings.2 The prophets, who at first moved about from
place to place wherever their services were required, became
bishops or presbyters when they assumed the settled charge
of the various local Churches. The teachers, in like
manner, received the name of deacons when attached to
the presbyters as their assistants. The term pastor, or
shepherd, according to the use of the word in the Old
Testament, would seem to have been another name for the
presbyters, the rulers of the various communities ; while the
word evangelist appears to have had the same signification
as our present word missionary, or missioner. Thus, what
ever historical criticism may claim to have established
concerning the genesis of Church authority, the statement
of our Ordinal appears to be, for all practical purposes,
a sufficiently accurate statement of the facts, that "it is
evident unto all men diligently reading the Holy Scriptures
and ancient authors, that from the Apostles' times there
have been these orders in the Christian Church — bishops,
priests, and deacons." "We may accept this statement of
the case, and adhere to it firmly in practice, without
thinking it necessary to lay down any particular theory in
relation to the mode of transmission of the powers of the
episcopal office.

1 The word presbyter is simply the Greek and Latin form of our
word elder. And our English word priest is simply a contraction of
the Latin presbyter.

2 Chap. xv. "Choose for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy
of the Lord, . . . for they, too (i.e. as well as the prophets and
teachens), minister to you the ministry of the prophets and teachers."
The words translated "minister," "ministry," are
\eiTovpyia.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 361

"We must next inquire what powers are possessed by the
ministers of the Christian Church. It appears to have
been the duty of the Apostles, and of Timothy and Titus
after they had been commissioned by them, to oversee the
clergy as well as the laity; of the presbyters to oversee
the flocks. The appointment of the clergy rested with the
chief minister, in conjunction with the flock, while such
clergy were set apart to their office by the president, in
conjunction with his assessors, the elders.1 The presiding
elder, or bishop, as he was afterwards called, could receive
an accusation against a presbyter,2 and address a formal
rebuke to him, if necessary.8 The public worship of the
Church was under the control of the bishop,4 and he had
a general right to the supervision of the charitable wrork
of the community.5 He had to arrange the stipends of the
clergy, when stipends were paid.6 He would naturally
preside at public worship, and lead the devotions of the
people, when present. In his absence, or among the various
local congregations under his general headship, it was the
duty of the elders to guide and instruct the community, to
conduct public worship, of which, in the very earliest days
of the Church, the Holy Communion appears invariably
to have formed part.7 No precise rule appears to have
been laid down for exceptional cases.8 But we may be
sure that no one presumed, under ordinary circumstances,
to minister in the congregation — that is to say, to celebrate
Holy Communion — unless he had been duly called to the

1 1 Tim. iv. 14, v. 22; 2 Tim. i. 6. See also 1 Tim. iii. 1-13;
Titus i. 5-9 ; also Acts xiv. 23.

2 1 Tim. v. 19. 3 1 Tim. v. 1. 4 1 Tim. ii. 1, 5 1 Tim. v. 3-16.

6 1 Tim. v. 17, 18. The Avord n^ evidently has the same sense
here (see v. 18) as in our phrase honorarium.

7 Acts xx. 5. Cf. Acts ii. 42, 46.

8 Such as persons speaking under the direct influence of inspiration,
as in 1 Cor. xiv. 27.

362 THE CREED.

office of a presbyter by the president, with the full consent
of the flock. Into the question, how far the term itptvs
(Lat. sacerdos\ which, as we have seen, is by a strange
confusion of language represented in English by the term
priest — an abbreviation of the word presbyter — may be
applied to the second order of the Christian ministry, we
need not enter at length. The term is not used of the
Christian ministry in the Scriptures, nor in any writings
of the first century of the Christian era. But, as was
perhaps natural under the circumstances, both Jewish and
heathen converts soon began to apply the title by which
their own ministers were called to the Christian clergy.
The question has been hotly — too hotly — debated on both
sides. But it may be admitted that so far — and only so
far — as the Christian clergy may fairly be regarded as
offering and pleading, in the Holy Eucharist, the Sacrifice
of Christ, made once for all in His Death, can the term
priest, in the sense of tepevs, be correctly applied to them.1
It may be well to add a few words about the selection
of persons for sacred offices in the Church. Our present
custom is to vest the selection of the Bishop in the Crown,
advised by the Prime Minister. A semblance of the ancient
custom of election is kept up in the fact that the person so
selected must be formally elected by the members of the
cathedral chapter. This right, however, cannot be freely exer
cised. The person selected by the Crown must be chosen
under pain of the loss of all their preferments by those refus
ing to elect. The ancient custom was the free choice by the
clergy and laity of the diocese. But this custom gradually
fell into disuse in the West, amid the confusions and
distractions of mediaeval times, until practically the nomi
nation of the bishops fell into the hands of the Pope. It
was to prevent all further interference on his part that the

1 See pp. 240, 241, 329.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 363

stringent statute to which reference has been made was
passed in the reign of Henry VIII. But it is obvious that
no such severe penalties are required now. It would be
well if the Church were now to return to the practice of
earlier and purer ages. That practice was summed up in
the following words : " Nullus invitis detur episcopus."
Its principle would be fully conceded if the nominee of
the Crown were required to be freely elected by the
clerical and lay representatives of the diocese.1 And
were we to follow primitive custom entirely, some such
ratification, by the parishioners or communicants, of the
appointment by the patron would be regarded as necessary
in the case of the clergyman of each parish.

Another question which meets us in connection with the
powers of the Christian ministry is that which concerns
itself with Absolution, or the power of announcing the for
giveness of their sins to any who may have offended, This
has been held to be involved in the words of the commission
given by our Lord to His disciples in St. John xx. 23. 2

1 We learn from THEODORET (Eccl. Hist. iv. 22) that the patriarch
of Alexandria was chosen "by a synod of bishops, by the votes of
the clergy, or by the request of the people." These were the "rules
of the Church." ATHANASIUS, in his Apology against the Arians
(chap. vi. ), declares that he was elected bishop by the voice of the
whole Catholic population of Alexandria. PAULINUS says the same
thing of the election of Ambrose (Life of Ambrose, chap, vi.) And
AMBROSE himself refers to the practice in Epp. xlvi., Ixiii. But in
regard to presbyters we have a far earlier testimony. ST. CLEMENT OF
ROME, in his Epistle to tJie Corinthians (chap, xliv.), states that in
•his day the presbyters (then called bfsltops) were appointed with the
consent of the whole Church, and could not be removed from their
office when once appointed, as long as they "blamelessly" performed
the duties of their office.

2 The power of binding and loosing, given in St. Matthew xvi. 19,
xviii. 18, is now generally supposed to mean enjoining or forbidding.
The words are used in this sense by the Rabbis. See LIGHTFOOT,
Horae Hebraicae, in loc.

364 THE CREED.

With regard to this commission, it must not be assumed,
as has too often been the case, that it is necessarily
equivalent to the words, " Whose soever sins each individual
priest shall remit in private confession, they are remitted ;
and whose soever sins shall be retained by each individual
priest in private confession, they are retained." The words
are plural, not singular. They are therefore addressed to
a body, not to an individual. If the Apostles only were
present, which is by no means certain,1 then they were
addressed to the presidents of the Christian community.
If others were present with them, then they were addressed
to the community itself. Accordingly we find St. Paul,
when directing the public exclusion of a notorious offender
from the Christian body, commands that it shall be done
in facie ecclesiae — in the presence of the whole society.2
The power to remit and retain sins was accordingly exercised
in all cases publicly in the early ages of the Church. The
ceremony of exomologesis, described in early writers,3 was
a public ceremony, in which the offender rolled in dust

1 Compare John xx. 19 23 with Luke xxiv. 36. It will be observed
that St. John says that the " disciples " were present, not the Apostles
only, and that St. Luke includes among those present the disciples
returned from Emmaus, and " those who were with " the Apostles.

2 1 Cor. v. 4. It is true that he describes himself as doing the
same thing in 1 Tim. i. 20. But we do not know enough about the
circumstances to be able to decide in what way the sentence in this
last case was pronounced.

3 The woman mentioned by IRENAELTS (Against Heresies, i. 13)
seems to have made this public confession a continual practice, as a
self-inflicted penance for having fallen into very gross sin. She was
the wife of a deacon. Tertullian mentions the custom — the clothing
of himself by the penitent in sackcloth, the groaning, the weeping,
the rolling at the feet of the presbyters, the imploring the inter
cessions of the brethren. (On Repentance, chap, ix.) But he appears
to regard it as permissible only once. The De Poenitcntia is thought
to have been written before Tertullian seceded from the Catholic
Church.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 365

and ashes before the bishop or presbyters, in the presence
of the whole congregation, confessed his sin, and implored to
be re-admitted to communion. Private confession was only
introduced when the increasing corruption in the Church
was the cause of serious scandal, owing to the gross nature
of the offences thus publicly brought to light.1 And when
the privacy of the newly instituted confessional was broken,
the appointment of penitentiaries, or persons licensed to
receive confessions, was for a time revoked. Eventually the
public exercise of discipline in the Church fell into abeyance,
and private confession to a priest took its place. And
when this had become the rule, the commission to absolve
sinners gradually found its way into the Ordinal. This
took place between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries.
In our own Church, the abuses connected with the Con
fessional in mediaeval times induced our reformers to dis
courage private confessions, and to confine confession to
those who could not "quiet their own consciences, but
required further comfort or counsel."2

1 For this point see Bishop BROWNE (On the Articles, p. 585,
3rd ed.). It will also be found very fully discussed in BINGHAM
(Antiquities, xviii. 3).

2 Some Roman controversialists have pretended that the temporary
omission of the words " for the office and work of a priest in the Church
of God," as well as the absence of any commission to offer the Eucharistic
Sacrifice, invalidated all our orders. But the argument proves a little
too much, as Roman arguments, when examined, are usually found to do.
For as these specifications were only introduced into the Ordinal between
the twelfth and fourteenth century, it follows that the Catholic
Church cannot be proved ever to have had any Orders in it at all.
The earliest form of ordination which has come down to us is found in
the Apostolical Constitutions, VIII. xvi. There is no commission of
the kind in it. The date of the Apostolical Constitutions is about
the middle of the fourth century. The Eastern Church, again, has no
such form. A considerable quantity of literature has sprung up lately
on this subject, in consequence of the Papal Bull Apostolicae Curae.
The publications of the Church Historical Society will be found
extremely useful by the student on this point.

366 THE CREED.

We have therefore to consider in what sense the commis
sion of our Lord to His Apostles is to be understood. As
usual in matters of this kind, it will be found that a middle
course is the safest one. To assert that every sentence of
excommunication pronounced by bishop or presbyter is tpso
facto valid, that every private absolution or refusal of abso
lution is at once ratified in the courts of heaven, involves an
absurdity. To declare that no validity whatever attaches in
any case to either is to evacuate our Lord's words of all their
force, and of all practical value whatsoever. On the one hand,
no one can reasonably contend that the excommunications so
freely showered upon opponents in ancient and mediaeval, or
even in modern times, must necessarily have cut those off
from Christ against whom they are pronounced. If they do,
then we English Churchmen are cut off from Christ, for the
Roman and Eastern Churches alike have shut us out from com
munion. Nay, the Roman and Eastern Churches are them
selves cut off from Christ, for each excommunicates the other.
On such principles as these the Christian Church has long
since ceased to exist. Nor can even any moderate Roman
Catholic maintain that absolutions given on the principles of
Jesuit morality, which the more moderate Roman Catholics
emphatically reject,1 are valid absolutions in the sight of
God.2 On the other hand, it will hardly be contended, in the
face of such passages as Matt, xviii. 17, 1 Cor. v. 3-5, that the
Christian Church has no right to exclude notorious offenders
from communion, or that the individual clergyman has no

1 Information on this point will be found in Dr. LITTLEDALE'S
Plain Reasons against Joining the Church of Home, sees. 9 and 95.
The great work of the learned Professors VON DOLLINGER and REUSCH
on Jesuit Morality contains ample details.

8 [Origen (on Matt. xvi. 19) says that "only those can exercise
Peter's gift (of binding and loosing) who, like him, are fit to exercise
it." An illustration of the truth of this remark may be found in the
person of the priest Sorbin absolving Charles IX. of his crime in
the massacre of St. Bartholomew— a crime which was a virtue in the
absolver's eyes !]

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 367

right to speak peace to the troubled soul, or to point out to
those who consult him privately that persistence in a wrong
course of conduct will infallibly bring on them the wrath of
Almighty God.

What, then, is the conclusion to which we are led ? It is
that there doubtless is a power inherent in the Church, and
derived from this there is even a power given to each one of
her ministers to declare the wrath of God against sin, and His
pardon of the penitent sinner. The power, it would seem, can
only be declarative in its nature. The right to forgive sin is
certainly not inherent in the presbyter himself. He can but
act ministerially, as commissioned by Christ. The form of
the words used by Christ (though there is, it must be con
fessed, some variation in the text) seems to imply this. The
words, "Whose soever sins ye remit, they have been remitted,
and whose soever sins ye retain, they have been retained,"
mean apparently that the Church has power to declare to eacli
individual the position in which he stands in God's sight ; to
pass judgment upon him as penitent or impenitent ; to pro
nounce or to withhold the words of pardon and peace, accord
ing as he fulfils or comes short of the conditions which the
Lord has laid down. But this sentence is not in every case
absolute and infallible. It depends, as all other Divine gifts
to the Church depend, upon the manner in which it is exer
cised. The light which reaches us is coloured in every direc
tion by the medium of human infirmity through which it has
to pass. A godly bishop who, in a spirit of humility, prayer,
and faith, cuts off, with the consent of the Church, an
offender from her communion or restores him to it, will
doubtless be conveying to that offender the sentence of God ;
a bishop who, in ignorance, pride, or passion, launches the
thunders of excommunication by his own sole authority at
anyone who has disobeyed his orders or thwarted his plans,
is just as obviously not pronouncing God's sentence at all,
but simply uttering idle curses which " come home to roost."
The individual sentence of a particular priest, or it may be,

368 THE CREED.

in a lower sense still, even of a godly Christian layman1, on
a particular case, will naturally be pronounced with a lesser
degree of authority, and its value will depend on the reputa
tion for piety and judgment enjoyed by him who pronounces
it, as well as upon the sincerity and truthfulness of the per
son who consults him. But that individual members of the
Church, clerical or even lay, may on occasion claim to advise
their brethren on the state of their souls, and that their pro
nouncements will have a force proportioned to their authority,
office, piety, and experience, seems a proposition which it is
impossible to dispute ; and therefore the private ministrations
of a wise, experienced, and truly earnest clergyman may be
of the utmost value to the soul. If there can be no absolute
mathematical certainty that the sentence pronounced in the
case is correct, there will at least be a moral certainty, where
the powers inherent in the ambassador of Christ have been
exercised in no light and careless spirit, which will carry con
viction to the heart. It is unfortunate that among ourselves
the reaction from the terrible abuse of compulsory confession,
as it exists in the Roman communion, should have so sadly
curtailed the private ministrations to souls of the clergy of
the Church of England. To such an extent has this false
shyness been carried, that many earnest clergy of the Church
of England have felt themselves compelled to insist once more
on confession as almost if not quite compulsory, in order to
bring any persons whatever to confession, or even to seek
spiritual advice. This is doubtless a serious mistake. The
normal condition of the Christian is that in which at all times
he "has access to the Father through Christ."2 And it

1 As is well known, the office of spiritual director has occasionally
been undertaken by laymen. [Canon MACCOLL {Reformation Settle
ment, pp. 211-214) gives instances of this practice, and quotes Aquinas
and "the Jesuit Perrone " in its favour. Bishop DRURY (Confession
and Absolution^ p. 14) cites the Decretals, on the authority of Jewel.]

2 Rom. v. 2 ; Eph. ii. 18, iii. 12.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 369

will be the aim of every true guide of souls to endeavour
to re-establish this relation when lost, and to enable the
penitent as soon as possible to dispense with the confessor's
services. But on the other hand, it is a serious hindrance
to the spiritual life of thousands among us that when
bruised, battered, stunned, blinded by sin, cut off thereby
from communion with God, unable to see Him with the eyes
of faith, they insist on groping their way back again for
themselves, floundering helplessly in the mire of their own
frailty, rather than consult an experienced spiritual guide
who could declare to them with more or less authority the
condition in which they stand in God's sight. Every clergy
man is not, of course, by virtue of his office equally fit to
undertake the charge of penitent souls, nor is the verdict of
every clergyman upon a given case of equal value. It
may be hoped that few who have been admitted to Holy
Orders will be absolutely unfit to give spiritual counsel and
guidance. Still, experience and wisdom are unquestionably
necessary factors in difficult and delicate processes such as
these, and it were the extreme of folly not to seek for such
special qualifications in a spiritual physician who is called
upon to exercise the higher duties of his office, as much as
we should seek similar special qualifications of the physician
of the body in cases of unusual danger or difficulty.

To sum up what has been said. The violent denunciation
of the confessional which finds favour in some quarters ap
pears to be as great a mistake as is the practice of compulsory
confession as at present carried on in the Church of Rome.
Each of these, by the well-known law of reactions, tends to
produce the other. The truth lies between the two extremes.
Those who, at crises of their life, when their spirits are
enfeebled by habits of sin, when their minds are clouded
by doubts or harassed by temptations, seek the advice of
a wise and enlightened clergyman, will experience the value

2 B

370 THE CREED.

of the commission given by Christ to His Church to remit
and retain sin. What a pilot is to a difficult and intricate
channel, what a skilled physician is to a mysterious and
perplexing case, that is the minister of Christ — especially
when he has for years lived Christ as well as preached
Christ — to those whose moral sense is weakened and whose
spiritual insight is impaired by sinful habits long indulged.
Such a man Avill be able to point out mistakes, to suggest
remedies, and in a thousand ways to speak peace to the
troubled soul.1

1 So impartial an authority as HALLAM (Constitutional Hist. Vol. I.
p. 88), in endeavouring to strike the moral balance between nations
which do and those which do not use the Confessional, admits
his inability to perceive any very marked difference between them.
His impartiality is perhaps a little too well preserved. There can be
little doubt that those nations which abandoned compulsory confession
at the Reformation possess a moral vigour which is absent from those
nations in which that practice has been enforced. England, Germany,
Holland, compare favourably with Italy, France, or Spain, even in
sexual morality, and certainly are superior to them in moral principle
in the wider sense of the word. These latter nations, it is true, have
also of late very largely abandoned the use of confession ; but they
have given up with it the profession of the Christian religion. They
have abandoned confession, not because of their reliance on Christ,
but because of their contempt for His ministers and His doctrine.
Yet they have never recovered the moral enfeeblement which comes
from placing our consciences habitually and unreservedly in another's
keeping. Of the two evils, that of never consulting the clergyman
privately at all, and that of making him the sole dispenser of pardon
and the necessary guardian of the conscience, the latter at least,
when carried out on a large scale, must be regarded as immeasurably
the greater. It may, perhaps, be necessary to explain that when, as
in the text, the practice of resorting to the clergy for advice is
spoken of, no reference is intended to the practice of the Roman
Church, of regularly and systematically confessing every sin that can
be remembered to the priest. The practice defended in the text is
simply the resort to an experienced clergyman when people are unablo
to quiet their own burdened consciences, and when the confession is con
fined to the particular sin or sins which disquiet them. This, as every
one knows, is the teaching of our Church in our Communion Office.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 371

Our last point in connection with the doctrine of the
Christian ministry is the position of those bodies which have
abandoned the principle of episcopacy. Are those who
belong to such bodies members of the Catholic Church, or
are they not? Is the possession of an episcopally-ordained
ministry so absolutely essential to the validity of the Sacra
ments that all bodies who are deprived of it, whether by
their fault or by their misfortune, are entirely cut off from
the communion of the Church ? In order to arrive at a just
conclusion, we have first to remember that these bodies
are of two classes. First, there are those who, like the
Presbyterians in Scotland and the Reformed Communions
abroad, adopted a Presbyterian form of government at the
Reformation, some of them because they could not obtain
episcopal consecration, and some of them because of the
sjbrong reaction against episcopal crimes and tyranny in
mediaeval times, which made the bare idea of episcopacy
odious in the eyes of the people.1 Secondly, there are
those who have rejected the authority even of the bishops
of our Reformed Church, and have formed separate
communities in order to embody their own ideas of
Christian doctrine and of Church order. It is obvious
that the former class of communities stand in a better
position, and have more claim to ecclesiastical continuity
than the latter. To rebel against the authority of the
lawful ecclesiastical officer, and to introduce separation
into the Church of Christ, must of necessity be wrong,
except when a Church seeks to impose unlawful terms
of communion ; and of course the onus probandi, in case of
secession, lies upon the seceders. In regard to Dissenters
from the Church of England, the excuse of unlawful terms

1 This was notoriously the case in Scotland, where the abuses
connected with episcopacy appear to have been worse than in any
other part of Christendom.

372 THE CREED.

of communion was alleged in the first instance. It was
held that the whole system of our Church, doctrinal as
well as practical, was unscriptural, and that therefore
Christian men could not possibly remain in her. But it
is remarkable how, one by one, every objection originally
raised against our doctrines and formularies has been
given up; and if there be any case now alleged against
our Church it is altogether a new one. Her assailants
have in fact entirely shifted their ground. It is impossible
here to argue out the question of the impropriety on the
part of the members of the Church of Christ of separation
into distinct organizations. It is sufficient to remark (1)
that there is nothing of the kind to be found in the days
of the Apostles, and (2) that the spirit which prompts
such separation is unequivocally condemned in the New
Testament.1 But it is impossible to avoid the question:
Is this separation a separation from the Church, or in the
Church? Are those who have taken part in it still
members of the Church, though "peccant and unsound
members," as the late Bishop Wordsworth, of Lincoln,
taught,2 or are they altogether outside the limits of that
Catholic Church in which we profess our belief?

On the first point, the absence of episcopal succession
and ordination, it may be sufficient to say that the point
has never yet been submitted to the Church Universal
for decision, and that therefore we are not in a position
to pronounce upon it. It is certain that from the
times of the Apostles themselves the order of chief
governor, whether he were called apostle or bishop, has
been continuously in existence. Those bodies therefore
which possess the episcopal succession know that they have
a valid ministry and valid Sacraments. Those who have
introduced a new form of government can at best only

1 1 Cor. iii. 1-5. a TheopUlus Angticanus, p. 35 (3rd ed.).

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 373

say that they believe, and have some grounds for believing,
that they possess these things — that it is possible, or, it may
be, even probable, that Churches locally ruled by presbyters
were in existence in the first century.1 It is best to be
satisfied with saying thus much. When we consider (1) that
in every case the Church which has abandoned episcopal
regimen has at the same time lost its hold, more or less, on
the primitive tradition of the true Catholic doctrine, and
has adopted standards of orthodoxy from Avhich in after ages
it would be glad to be set free ;2 and (2) that the Presbyterian
bodies are beginning to regard their Episcopalian brethren
with greater friendliness ; it may be as well not to provoke
controversy on a point which must be confessed to be doubtful.
We should rather endeavour to persuade the Presbyterian
bodies to conform to the general custom of Christendom, and
we may be sure that if their amour propre be not wounded by
unnecessary antagonism, the logic of events will bring them
in the end into line with the rest of Catholic Christendom
in the matter of Church government.8

The case of the " orthodox " Dissenters in this country is
somewhat different. They have set up altar against altar,
and, as they are now obliged to confess, without sufficient
cause.4 But they are not disposed to abandon the attitude

1 So Canon Gore at the Cardiff Congress: "It is true that at a
certain moment in the development of the Church at the end of
the first century the presbyters were apparently the chief local
authorities in the Churches of Greece."

3 These words are as true of the Church of Rome as of any other
body in Christendom. If the Protestant confessions of faith are
becoming a burden to those who are bound by them, the Church of
Rome, which has practically abolished episcopacy by prostrating the
bishops at the feet of the Pope, is finding it increasingly difficult to
impose her standards of doctrine on people who can think, and care to
think, on matters theological.

[3 HOOKER, Eccl. Pol. III. xi. 16, calls Presbyterianism a "defect
and imperfection." But he " had rather lament than exagitate it."]

4 As is shown by the wholesale abandonment of their ancient trust
deeds.

374 THE CREED.

which they have assumed. In what position, then, do they
stand? They have been made members of the Catholic
Church by a valid baptism in the Name of the Blessed
Trinity; but do they receive Holy Communion? This is
a question which involves considerable difficulty. Whether
the presence of a lawfully ordained priest at the celebration
of Holy Communion is absolutely necessary in all cases to
the validity of the rite, is again a point on which the
Catholic Church has not officially pronounced. That the
presence of a lawfully ordained priest at Holy Communion,
if not absolutely essential, is certainly eminently desirable,
will be generally admitted. That ordination among the
separated bodies is extremely doubtful and irregular is
another point which may be regarded as tolerably clear.
That the Catholic Church from the earliest times demanded
the presence of a man duly appointed to bless the sacred
elements in Christ's Name, is moreover quite certain; but
what is not so certain is the exact position of separatists,
orthodox on the whole in their belief, since the confusions
and distractions of the Reformation period.1 The usurpa
tions of Rome provoked a reaction which shook the
Western Church to her foundations, and caused many of
her members to lose sight altogether of the true principles
of Church government. It is quite possible that under
such circumstances the doctrine of intention may apply;
but what is meant is the intention, let it be observed,
not of the priest, but of the congregation. Is it not

1 The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, in a paper published in
the Nineteenth Century for April, 1894, distinguishes, first, between
heresy and schism in the early days of the Church, when they
involved denial of fundamental principles of Christian doctrine, and
the heresies and schisms of later days, which related to doctrines of
far less fundamental importance, and were brought into existence
when continued discord had weakened the principle of Church
authority ; and, secondly, he distinguishes between heresy and
schism introduced and inherited.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 375

conceivable, in the present disorders of Christendom, that
wherever a congregation of baptized Christians is gathered
together in good faith to receive the Sacrament of Holy
Communion, without any deliberately formed intention to
break the laws of God's Church, God might be pleased to
vouchsafe to them His promised Presence ? 1 Of course the
person who ventures to take the oversight of a Christian
congregation, and to celebrate the Sacrament without proper
qualifications, must take his full share of responsibility for
any breach of Church order involved in his action; but
this responsibility will itself depend upon the opportunities
he has had of realizing the fact that this action is a breach
of Church order. If, on the other hand, we apply the
modern scientific principle of induction to this view, that
is, if we compare it with the results of observation, we
shall find much to confirm it; for (1) we should hardly be
disposed to deny that many individual Nonconformists are
in Christ; but if so, any body of Nonconformists, as an
aggregate of individuals, must be acknowledged to be also
in Him — in other words, to be a branch of His Church.
And (2) whatever may be the faults of Nonconformity, we
cannot deny that the Nonconformist bodies, so far as we are
able to judge, show unmistakable signs of being organized
Christian communities, displaying even some features of
Church life, though by no means all, to a greater extent
than the body to which we ourselves belong.2 Thus

1 In that spirit prayed good King Hezekiah when men from Israel,
who had cut themselves off from the priesthood and the true Church,
came to join in the worship of God without having gone through the
prescribed rites. "The good Lord pardon every one that setteth his
heart to seek God, the Lord, the God of his fathers, though he be not
cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary." 2 Chron.
xxx. 18, 19.

2 This does not apply to Unitarians, for the fact of Christ's
indwelling through the Divine Spirit is in no sense recognized as
the basis of their corporate life.

376 THE CREED.

observation and experience tend to confirm the reasoning
above, and lead us to the conclusion that these bodies,
though separated from us and from one another, arc bodies
in which the Personal Presence of Christ is to be found,
and that the state of separation in which they live, however
much to be deprecated, is not so grave a sin as to involve
entire separation from Christ.

It is here that the difficulty in dealing with Noncon
formity is greatest. Their ministers with one consent
declare that nothing would ever convince them that they
have not been ministering Christ to their people.1 If the
view taken above be correct, there would be no need to
attempt to convince them of anything of the kind, and yet
no need, on the other hand, to admit that they have been
lawfully and regularly called to the ministry. In fact, if we
grant that the unfortunate pretensions of the See of Rome
have led to a period of disorder, when the ordinary principles
of Church government have fallen into abeyance, and if we
endeavour to restore the normal condition of things without
too severely blaming those who during the interregnum
have acted for themselves, we shall find the restoration of
Christian unity an easier task than if we assume a principle
neither directly stated in Scripture, nor directly formulated
by the Catholic Church, nor definitely supported by the
irresistible logic of facts. If we stumble at the fact that
this interregnum has been prolonged to an extent unknown
in civil strife, we may find our explanation in the words,
" The children of this world are wiser in their generation
than the children of light."2

1 This remark was made in reply to a paper read by the writer
at Grindehyald.

2 The following passage from HOOTCEU (Eccl. Pol. V. Ixviii. 6) is
worthy of notice: "That which separateth therefore utterly, that
which cntteth off clean from the visible Church of Christ, is plain
apostasy, direct denial, utter rejection of the whole Christian faith,

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 377

Into the question of the guilt of schism, and at whose
door it is to be laid, we will not enter at any length, That
it all rests with the Nonconforming bodies, is more than
we have any right to assert. The strong repressive measures
adopted by our rulers in Church and State, in days when

as far as the same is professedly different from infidelity. Heretics
as touching those points of doctrine wherein they fail ; schismatics
as touching the quarrels for which, or the duties wherein, they divide
themselves from their brethren ; loose, licentious, and wicked persons
as touching their several offences or crimes, have all forsaken the
true Church of God — the Church which is sound and sincere in the
doctrine that they corrupt ; the Church that keepeth the bond of
unity which they violate ; the Church that walketh in the laws of
righteousness which they transgress ; this very Church of Christ they
have left, howbeit not altogether left nor forsaken simply the Church
upon the main foundations whereon they continue built, notwith
standing those breaches whereby they are rent at the top asunder."
Archdeacon NOERIS, in his Key to the Epistles of St. Paul, p. 134,
says: "If, then, St. Paul lays such evident stress on these two
Sacraments, the question yet remains why he never once alludes to
them in these pastorals in connection with the functions of the
Christian ministry ; and the answer surely is an obvious one —
obvious to anyone who enters into the spirit of St. Paul's teaching
— that the act and service of man in these two Sacraments are, in
St. Paul's view, not the act and service of the priest, but of the
congregation." Here, as elsewhere, it would seem that the Church
of Rome, in her doctrine of intention, has at once grasped and per
verted an important truth. "Intention" is necessary to the due
celebration of Holy Communion, but it is not the intention of the
priest but of the congregation. Where "two or three" pious Christians
are "gathered together" to celebrate the Holy Communion with no
deliberate desire to break the unity of the Church, though in ignor
ance they may be separating from their lawful pastor, we can hardly
doubt that God will mercifully vouchsafe to them the gift they seek, in
spite of the absence of one duly and properly qualified to minister to
them in holy things. In support of what has been said, it may be
observed that while in the writings of the early Fathers we have
pages upon pages which treat of the Church as the Body of Christ,
enjoying the gift of His Personal Presence through the Holy Spirit,
questions purely ecclesiastical obtain a very small share of their
attention.

378 THE CREED.

the principles of civil and religious liberty were not under
stood, are responsible for a great deal. Hallam has remarked
that persecutions, when they do not extirpate heresy, tend
rather to strengthen it.1 And doubtless the policy of
Elizabeth and her successors has had the effect of rooting
Nonconformity strongly in the minds of a considerable
section of our countrymen. The blame, however, does not
rest with the Church alone. All parties, in those times,
regarded the moment of their ascendancy as a God-given
opportunity to put down all other parties by the strong
hand of the law.2 Nor can we altogether acquit the
Nonconforming bodies of an unreasonable stubbornness in
the first instance, of the support of an unsound doctrinal
system in the second,3 and of a too great attachment to the
principle of individualism in the third. It would seem to
be the duty of all parties to endeavour, as strenuously as
possible, to remove impediments to reunion on the basis
of the Catholic Creeds, as explained and developed by
Scripture. We, on our part, should avoid the needless
multiplication of the theological propositions we require
those to accept who would join our communion, or minister
at our altars. They, on theirs, should cease to glorify the
principle of separation, and to magnify the faults, or strive
to cripple the resources, of the body from which they have
separated. And while we cannot give up the principle of
the episcopate, consecrated as it is by ancient and venerable
associations, recommended as it is by considerable practical
advantages, we shall do wisely not to prejudice its general

1 Const. Hist. , vol. I. chap. iii.

• Witness the treatment of the Church by the Puritans during the
great Civil War, and their treatment of the Quakers in New England.
See also the views of the Puritan Cartwright, in HALLAM, Const.
Hist., vol. I. p. 188.

3 i.e.) Calvinism in the case of the earlier N onconformiug bodies,
Ariuinianism in the case of the Wesleyans.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 379

adoption by laying down as essential the principle that
they who are unfortunately without it "are in no wise
partakers of Christ."1

SECTION IV.

ON TUE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH.

Our last inquiry, in treating of the Church of Christ,
will be the nature and limits of her authority. The
Twentieth Article of the Church of England tells us that
"the Church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies,
and hath authority in controversies of faith." The principle
here laid down appears eminently reasonable. That a
society has power to make its own rules is a proposition
so obvious that it need not be discussed. That such rules,
when made, should, under ordinary circumstances, be

1 " And here I will refer to a doctrinal ruling of Catholic theology,
which is admitted even by the most papally -minded theologians, and
which, as I believe, may be of the greatest service to the cause of
union. It is always taught in the Church that baptism is what
makes everyone a member of the true Catholic Church ; and as baptism
can never be obliterated or repeated, anybody once baptized remains
for ever a member of the one Church, even should he pass over to
another sect or Church ; only that he then loses the rights of member
ship. In the religious manual approved by Church authority for use
in the Bavarian schools, it is taught that those who have been made
members of Christ by the Sacrament of Baptism, if they remain out
of her visible communion only through involuntary ignorance and
error, are regarded by the Church as her true children, erring by no
fault of their own." Von DOLLINGEE, Lectures on the Reunion of the
Churches, pp. 151, 152. I have placed some portions of this remark
able passage in italics, as indicating the lines on which reunion may
one day be reached. In PURCELL'S Life of Cardinal Manning a
similar declaration on the part of the great Cardinal may be found,
It were to be wished that the practice of conditional rebaptism of
Anglicans were dropped in the Roman communion, adopted as it is on
the alleged ground of the carelessness of the Anglican clergy. The
Sacrament of Baptism is certainly performed at least as reverently
and carefully in the Church of England as in that of Rome.

380 THE CREED.

conscientiously obeyed, is another proposition to which
exception will hardly be taken.1 That the Church has
power to define in what her own message consists, will
hardly be denied. But the question of the limits of Church
authority is one which is much debated. The statements
of Scripture and the Creed upon it are not express, and
therefore the question is one on which we are only entitled
to speak with reserve. Our Lord appears to have endowed
His Apostles, and through them His Church, with authority
to give decisions on practical subjects. This appears clear
from His saying to St. Peter, and afterwards to the twelve,
that "whatsoever they should bind on earth should have
been bound in heaven, and whatsoever they should loose
upon earth should have been loosed in heaven."2 And His
language is still more explicit in Matthew xviii. 17, where
He bids those who have a complaint against a neighbour to
"'tell it," in the last resort, "to the Church," and if the
neighbour aforesaid "refuse to hear the Church, let him
be unto thee as the Gentile and the publican." Some
authority, moreover, in controversies of faith would seem
to be implied in the Apostle's words, in 1 Timothy iii. 15,
that the "Church of the living God" is the "pillar and
ground of the truth." Indeed, this may also be regarded
as involved in the very existence of the Church, for if she
had no definite certainty about the nature of the message
with which she had been entrusted, her testimony regarding
Christ would be of no use whatever. But when we come
to define the nature and limits of this authority, we find
ourselves confronted with a variety of theories. First there
is the Roman theory, which claims for the Pope in person,

1 " The Church hath authority to establish that for an order at one
time, which at another time it may abolish, and in both may do well."
HOOKER, Eccl. Pol. V. viii. 2.

2 Matt. xvi. 19; xviii. 18. Consult the Greek.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 381

when speaking ex cathedra, the infallible power of deciding
any particular question which may be referred to him for
his decision. Then there is the Oriental theory, which
regards the supreme power to decide disputes as vested in
Oecumenical Councils. The Eastern Church accepts the
decisions of " the Seven Oecumenical Councils " as binding in
matters of faith.1 The Anglican theory is a little difficult to
state in accurate terms. Speaking broadly, it recognizes the
voice of the Church before the division of East and West.
But the Second Council of Mcaea — the Seventh Oecumenical
Council, according to the Roman and Eastern Church — is
rejected by the vast majority of Anglican theologians as
contrary both to Holy Scripture and the rule " quod ubique,
quod semper, quod ab omnibus," to which reference has
already been made.2 The English Church, in her Sixth
Article, has stated that nothing is to be required of a
Christian man as "requisite or necessary to salvation" but
what is "contained" in Holy Scripture, or what may be
"proved thereby." And the majority of our theologians
have held, in regard to the Second Council of Nicaea, that
its decrees are opposed to the teaching of Holy Scripture.
Lastly, the Protestant theory is that the Scriptures are
God's Word written, but that each man must decide for
himself what doctrines he finds in them.3

The student must be referred to other works for a full
discussion of questions so wide as the supremacy and

1 See Longer Catechism of the Russian Church, part I., art. ix.,
"Of the Church."

2 See p. 290 for this expression.

3 " The Gallicans believed that nothing has the seal of infallibility
which has not been received by the whole Church." PUSEY, Eirenicon,
p. 288. This definition, however, is incomplete. We are still left
without information what is meant by the "whole Church." It will
be found that different schools among us put different interpretations
on the phrase,

382 THE CREED.

infallibility of the Pope. It must suffice here to give a
very brief outline of the objections which have been raised
against these two doctrines. To the argument in their
favour, derived from the fact that St. Peter is, by some of
the Fathers, supposed to have been the "rock" on which
Christ declared He would " build His Church," it is replied
that a considerable majority of the Fathers have regarded
that important passage as referring,' not to St. Peter as an
individual, but to the confession of faith which he had
just made, which, as the Sacrament of Baptism shows, is
the first requisite of membership in the Church of Christ.1
It is further obvious that even if our Lord's words are to
be interpreted of Peter personally, no mention whatever

1 See a very excellent abstract of the teaching of the Fathers in
DEXTON'S Commentary on the Gospels, St. Peter's Day. The obiter
dicta of the Fathers were often put forth without sufficient con
sideration, as may be learned from the fact that though Origen
frequently calls St. Peter the Rock, he nevertheless, when he comes
to comment carefully on Matt. xvi. 18, the passage in which the
declaration appears, deliberately expounds it of St. Peter's con
fession, and not of himself. The advocates of the Roman claims
are apt to say that the difference between Petros and petra dis
appears in the " Syro-Chaldaic " dialect, and that therefore in the
original Aramaic there is no distinction between tirl rrj irlrpa.
ravrr) and tirl ere. Even this ingenious evasion of the conclusion
which follows naturally from the language of the inspired historian
disappears before the light of investigation. In the Anecdota
Oxoniensia, Semitic Series, vol. I. part ix., appears a singular
fragment in Palestinian Syriac, of unknown date, discovered at
Sinai by Mrs. Lewis, and edited by Mr. F. C. Burkitt, in which
occur the words, "The Lord said unto him, 'Thou art Simon, which
is interpreted Petros.' He said not to him 'Upon thee will I build
the Church, ' but ' Upon this rock (which is the Body wherewith the
Lord was clothed) I build My Church.'" It is worthy of notice
that the word for Petros, and that for rock, are altogether different in
this fragment, so that the play upon words entirely disappears, and
there is thus a wider distinction in the Palestinian Syriac document
than in the Greek. I am much indebted to my friend, Mr. [now
Professor] Burkitt, for calling my attention to this fact.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 383

is made of his successors. There can be but one rock on
which the Church is built. And if Peter be that rock,
which has by no means been proved, it is impossible that
all his successors, for nearly nineteen centuries, can also be
the one rock on which the Church has been built. More
over it is also difficult to ascertain who are his successors.
Though it is probable that St. Peter visited Rome, and was
martyred there, yet there is no proof that he was ever
appointed Bishop of Rome. There is no hint to that effect
in St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, nor any declaration by
our Lord, or any of His Apostles, that Rome was destined
to be the centre of all authority in Christ's Church. We
find, it is true, that the bishops of Rome exercised consider
able authority on disputed questions in early times. But
that authority was no greater, if it were even as great, as
that exercised at the present moment in the Anglican
communion by the Archbishop of Canterbury, whom no
one among ourselves dreams of investing with the Papal
prerogatives of supremacy and infallibility. The reason
of this pre-eminence on the part of the Bishop of Rome
was in no sense a spiritual one. As has just been said,
it occupies no place in the documents or the fundamental
principles of the Church in the Apostolic ago. It was due
simply and solely to secular considerations. It arose from
the fact that Rome, at the time when the Church was
founded, was the capital of the civilized world. We can
have little idea at the present moment of the august
pre-eminence enjoyed at that period by the city which
boasted so proud a position. The majesty of Rome reflected
high honour even upon so humble a person among her
citizens as the bishop of the proscribed Christian com
munity. And, moreover, as the capital, Rome was the
place to which persons belonging to the Imperial provinces
were compelled, by circumstances, continually to resort.

384 THE CREED.

Thus, when a question arose concerning any doctrine or
practice handed down in the Church, the true tradition could
more easily be ascertained at Rome than at any other place.1
The bishops, at the Fourth Oecumenical Council, declared
the cause of Rome's ecclesiastical pre-eminence to be the
fact that Rome was the capital.2 And the fact that when
it occurred to Constantine to build a new capital on the
shores of the Bosphorus, the hitherto insignificant see of
Byzantium was immediately, and on that ground only,
advanced to the second position among the patriarchates
of the Universal Church, gives additional force to this
argument. There was also a tendency, which has been
felt even at the present day, and in the Anglican com
munion, to recognize some one individual as the symbol
of the Church's unity, if it were only for convenience
sake. Nor was it always understood in early times as
clearly as it should have been, that the Church of Christ
might have to pay somewhat too heavy a price for so
obviously convenient an arrangement. As years went on,
and the Eastern Empire declined, and the seats of the great

1 Both these reasons are given in the well-known passage of
IRENAEUS, Against Heresies, III. iii. 2. Unfortunately the passage
is not extant in the Greek. But in the Latin it runs thus: "ad
hanc enim ecclesiam propter potiorem principalitatem necesse est
omnem convenire ecclesiam, hoc est, eos qui sunt undique fideles,
in qua semper ab his, qui sunt undique, conservata est ea quae
est ab Apostolis traditio." The translation has been much discussed.
But there can be little doubt in the mind of any fair-minded man
that the sense is accurately given above. See Dr. LITTLEDALE'S
Words for Truth, p. 18.

2 Canon 28 of the Council of Chalcedon. It states that "the
Fathers gave the primacy to Rome because it was the seat of the
Empire " (5id rb £a(nXei'eu>), and that the second place was given to
Constantinople because it "enjoyed equal privileges with Rome."
Roman theologians have laboured with great industry and ingenuity
to attenuate the force of this statement, but with no very conspicuous
success.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 385

Eastern patriarchates fell one by one under heathen domi
nation, the power wielded by the Papacy steadily grew, and
the more so as Western peoples found in the spiritual au
thority of the Bishop of Rome the only counterpoise to cruel
tyranny and oppression on the part of their secular rulers.
In an age of ignorance the popes endeavoured to strengthen
their position by artifice. The false decretals were forged to
support the Papal claims; and the inexperienced student
needs to be warned that the writings of the Fathers, and
especially of St. Cyprian, have been ingeniously interpolated
for the same purpose.1 The famous Hildebrand (Gregory
VIL, 1073-1085), with consummate ability, raised the Papacy
to so commanding a position that emperors and kings were
compelled to acknowledge his authority. The Papal power
reached its height in the reign of Innocent III. (1198-
1216), when our own king John stooped so low as to do
homage to the Pope for his position as King of England.
But power so vast, obtained by such means, was sure to
be abused. It began to be felt that in the place of resorting
to the Pope to obtain relief from secular oppression,
there had grown to be some need of calling into existence
a power which could restrain the abuse of authority by the
popes themselves. Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln,
the most distinguished ecclesiastic in the reign of Henry III.,
John's successor, began his career as a firm supporter of
the Papal cause.2 But when he saw to his dismay that
the supremacy was exercised in such a way as to become
a scandal to all true religion, he boldly denounced the
authority he had once supported, and was believed through
out all Christendom to have invoked, after his death, the
Divine vengeance on Innocent IV. for his career of "false
hood and wrong."3 Certain it is that both the East, and

1 The Benedictine editors confess the interpolations.

2 See the Life of Robert Grosseteste, by Canon PEKRY.
8 MILMAN, Hist, of Latin Christianity, vi. 393.

2 G

386 THE CREED.

all non-Eoman bodies In the West, at the present moment,
lay the blame of our present divisions on the Papal cjaims.
The East, up to this hour, resents the policy pursued by the
Pope, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in making
the assistance of the Western Powers to Constantinople,
then hard pressed by the infidel, depend upon the willing
ness of the Eastern bishops to relinquish their ancient
prerogatives, and to prostrate themselves in unworthy
submissiveness at the feet of the Koman Pontiff. And in
the West the great Reformation schism, which has for three
centuries rent Western Christendom disastrously asunder,
was due to the long-continued abuse of Papal authority,
which provoked a reaction all the more fierce from having
been so long delayed. Even when the adherents of the
Papacy had driven from their pale all who resisted the
Papal claim to supremacy, it was still doubtful whether
the seat of authority lay in the Pope personally, or in a
Council summoned by his authority, and with his consent.
The Council of Constance (A.D. 1415) had pronounced in
favour of the latter view.1 The Council of Trent preserved
silence on the point. But at last the Vatican Council, in
1870, affirmed the former opinion. Thus, after eighteen
centuries of Christianity had passed away, a portion of the
Christian Church undertook for the first time to assert
that the prerogative of infallibility in all matters of
Christian doctrine was, and always had been, vested in
the person of the Pope. An energetic resistance to the
Vatican decrees was threatened, and actually commenced.
But it eventually collapsed. Only a small body of men
remained firm to their convictions. But their resolute

1 For further information on the Roman claims see Archbishop
LAUD against Fisher, BARROW on The Popes Supremacy, PALMER'S
Treatise on the Church, and in recent times, LITTLEDALE on The Petrine
Claims, and Dr. SALMON'S Lectures on the Infallibility of ike Church.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 387

determination not to submit produced a new schism, more
formidable, however, from the intellect and character of its
promoters than from the number of their followers. The
Old Catholic Churches, possessing an undisputed canonical
succession of bishops, and following a policy very similar to
that pursued by the Church of England in the sixteenth
century, were formed in most countries of Europe on the
basis of resistance to the Vatican decrees; and their congre
gations exist in most of the principal cities of Northern
Europe. They rest, it may be added, upon precisely the same
basis as ourselves, and readily admit Anglicans to communion.
This important question of Church authority, like many
other important questions, has been rendered more per
plexing by an unfortunate confusion of thought. Many
well-known writers, including some whose works have been
largely used as text-books among us, have apparently been
unable to distinguish between authority and infallibility.
They use these two words as though they were convertible
terms; but the slightest consideration will show that this
is by no means the case. In every branch of human
education considerable weight is attached to the opinion
of experts. A teacher speaks with authority to his pupils,
a doctor to his patients, a lawyer to his clients ; yet if any
one of these were to lay down as a first principle to those
who consulted him an implicit belief in his personal infalli
bility, such a course of conduct would be altogether fatal to
his authority. The word authority, when used in reference
to the expressing of an opinion, or the pronouncing of a
judgment, simply means the possession of special inform
ation, as well as a claim to pronounce the opinion or
judgment. When therefore we speak of the authority
of the Church, it must be understood that no more is
meant of necessity than that the decisions even of par
ticular Churches, and far more, of course, of the whole

388 THE CREBD.

Church, on questions of faith and morals must be received
in a spirit of respect and submissiveness. There is nothing
dishonourable nor unreasonable in a provisional submission
on subordinate points of doctrine or ritual to our own
particular Church, even when our judgment is opposed to
her verdict. But such provisional submission does not
preclude the possibility that the questions so decided may
at any future time be reopened and rediscussed whenever
fuller light may have been supposed to have been thrown
on them, or whenever anything has occurred to make it
possible that the principles on which the decisions were
given may have been insufficient or Unsound.

It will be replied that this is to give up all certainty
whatever, and to make the authority of the Church a mere
shifting quicksand, changing in position and character
according to the various currents of human thought. It
must be remembered, however, that the proposition just
enunciated does not apply to the first principles of the
Christian faith. It applies simply to "controversies of
faith." On the first principles of the faith no contro
versy can arise, at least among members of the Church.
They are beyond controversy. They have been laid down
from the beginning by the authority of Jesus Christ, and
whatever may be said of His members and ministers, His
Divine authority must be infallible. Anything, therefore,
which He has said — any doctrine to which He has given
His sanction — is a first principle of the Gospel which may
not be gainsaid. But we have no ground for affirming that
the Church has infallible authority to settle all secondary
questions which may arise in regard to the true interpre
tation and legitimate development of Bible teaching.1 On

1 This point was discussed by Easterns and Westerns at the Old
Catholic Congress of 1892, held at Lucerne, and it was decided that
"nothing could be regarded as binding which did not form part of
the universal, continual, and unanimous tradition of the Church."

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 389

these we may believe that Christian experience, under the
promised guidance of the Holy Spirit, will enable us to
throw an increasing light as the years roll on, and that
the quiet and mutually respectful interchange of opinion
on the part of men, each possessing a share of the promised
inspiration of the Spirit, will enable us at some future time
to arrive at the elucidation of many points which the
Church is not yet in a position to decide. Such elucida
tion, however, like that of scientific truth, will depend
for its acceptance, not on the dogmatic decrees formulated
by councils of Bishops, but on the general consent of
Christian people, based on the innate reasonableness of
the conclusions reached by investigators.1 But what, it

So, too, the Council of Trent, at its fourth session, forbids any to
interpret the Scriptures except according to "the unanimous consent
of the Fathers." This "unanimous consent," however, can hardly
be pleaded for all the doctrines formulated at the Council. See
p. 291.

1 "In the Middle Ages, and much more in the early times of the
Church, there was infinitely more free speculation than is compatible
with Church views now. I think it must be we who are wrong. The
nature of things seems more in favour of the old way than of ours."
Dean CHURCH, Letter to Manuel Johnson, Life, p. 145. Gregory
of Nazianzus, hi his 33rd Oration, states that in his day it was con
sidered lawful to speculate on the world, matter, soul, better and
worse reasonable beings, resurrection, judgment, retribution, and the
sufferings of Christ. ' ' For while the revived study of the theology
of earlier ages, if carried on critically with a discernment of that
which each age had to effect toward the progressive unfolding of the
truth in its world-embracing height and depth and breadth and
fulness, cannot be otherwise than beneficial ; on the other hand, if, as
we have seen happen in a number of instances, the end of this study
is merely to make us repeat by rote what was said in the fourth
century or the fourteenth, instead of becoming wiser we shall become
foolisher." Archdeacon HARE, Mission of the Comforter, Preface,
p. ix. "The censure here bestowed on the Fathers [by the Lutheran
commentator Lampe] is grounded upon a very common misconcep
tion, which sadly perverts our views of the history of the Church,
and mars the good we might otherwise derive from the divines of

390 THE CREED.

will be asked, on this theory is the weight to be attached
to the doctrinal decisions of the so-called Oecumenical
Councils of the Church1? It has already been observed1
that the authority attributed to the decrees of any Council
claiming to be Oecumenical does not depend upon their
being regarded as an expression of the voice of the whole
Church by representation, from which as being such there
is* no appeal, but upon their after reception by the Church
Catholic. It is necessary to repeat the observation here.
The history of the Oecumenical Councils, we must once
more insist, plainly shows that it was not the practice
of the early Church that a Council should meet and
vote itself Oecumenical, and demand in consequence the
acceptance of its decrees throughout the Christian world.
On the contrary, those decrees were often long and
fiercely canvassed after their promulgation. It took, as
we have seen, fifty-six years for Athanasius and his
followers, with the aid of the logic of facts, to con
vince the Church at large that no other word than the
non-Scriptural term Homoousion could adequately safe
guard the doctrine of the Godhead of the Eternal Word.
The decrees of Nicaea in A.D. 325 had to be reaffirmed and
republished at Constantinople in A.D. 381. The decrees of
the third and fourth Oecumenical Councils were still more
fiercely disputed. The opposition to them lasted for cen
turies, and only the gradual dying out of the Nestorian
and Monophysite Churches, and their entire, if informal,
relinquishment of their errors, has practically demonstrated

former ages. It is seldom duly borne in mind — indeed, till of late
years it was never distinctly recognized — that in theology, as in every
other department of human knowledge, there is a law of progress
according to which divers portions of Christian truth were not to
attain to their due prominence in the systematic exposition of doc
trines till after the lapse of several generations." Ibid., p. 208.
i See pp. 155, lf,6.

THE CATHOLIC CHtJRCH. 391

the unsuitability of their expositions of the faith as a
foundation for a Church against which the "gates of
Hades shall not prevail." Nor is this view of the function
of the early Councils at all unreasonable. A perfect repre
sentation of the Church in those days was not possible.
She possessed no machinery by which such representation
could be made. And if every diocese in Christendom had
chosen delegates, those delegates could never by any possi
bility have met at one place. The Councils were therefore
only a very rough approximation to a representation of the
Church. Constantine gathered 318 bishops at Nice from all
quarters of the world, but they were simply such as found
it convenient to attend. The Council of Constantinople con
sisted of only 1 50 bishops. Very few Western bishops were
present at either of these Councils. At Ephesus a consider
able number of Syrian bishops arrived after the decision had
been arrived at. Against the composition of the Council
of Chalcedon grave objections were raised. It was there
fore unavoidable, under the circumstances, that the Church
should be asked to ratify the decrees of the Councils, and
that without such ratification they should not be regarded
as universally binding.1 It has been held, it is true, that

1 " It has been generally held by theologians (excepting always those
of the high Roman school) that the retrospective acceptance of the
whole Church, including lay people as well as clergy, is necessary in
order to give Conciliar decrees their full Oecumenical character and
weight. This view — the view of Gerson and his friends at Constance,
and of the Gallican Church, of Archbishop Laud and the Anglican High
Church, of Janus in modern Catholic Germany — involves the truth for
which I desire to contend ; and borrowing the sentiment of my dear
friend the late Rev. John Keble, I venture to say that if the assent of
the lay people is thus necessary even in the highest of all instances,
the settlement of the faith, it is matter not of principle, but of con
venience and wisdom, to decide at what point and in what proportion
this Christian counsel shall be listened to and acknowledged." Bishop
MOBERLY, Bampton Lectures, Preface, p. x., 3rd ed. [Even the doctrine
of the personal infallibility of the Pope has been considered by some
minimizers as requiring the consent of the whole Church before any
of his pronouncements are to be regarded as binding.]

392 THE CREED.

the presence, personally or by representation, of the five
great patriarchs of the Christian Church constitutes a
guarantee of the Oecumenicity of a Council. But this
opinion lacks confirmation; for, first of all, the institution
of the patriarchate is no essential principle of the Church
of Christ, but only a matter of later convenience. It is
clear, moreover, that this institution depended far more
on the temporal importance of the city whose bishop was
thus elevated above the rest, than upon the purity of its
faith or the consistency of its Christian character; and
next, it is by no means certain that the heads of the most
important sees were on all occasions and in all respects the
fittest exponents of the mind of the Church at large. Still
less was this the case when they sent, as they sometimes
did at Councils, mere clerks to represent them — men whose
mental and theological acquirements could add no weight
to the deliberations at which they were present.

It is clear, therefore, that the Councils entered upon
their task under certain defined limitations. Their duty
was not to ascertain what, in their opinion, ought to
be taught, but simply what had been taught. Some
writers have spoken of the "whole Church" as though
it were the whole body of the faithful alive at any
given time in the Church's history.1 But this is far
from being the case. The whole Catholic Church is the
Church from the Apostles' times to our own. JS"o doctrine
can be required of any Catholic as essential to salvation
which has not been taught from the beginning. " Quod
ubique, quod semper t quod ab omnibus," we must again
repeat, is the true note of Catholicity.

1 Notably General Kireeff, in his discussion with Prebendary
Meyrick and myself in the Revue Internationale, Nos. 7-11. General
Kireeff is obviously giving expression to the general view in the
Eastern Church. The opinion 13 also very common among ourselves.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 393

We conclude then that Oecumenical Councils did not
meet to develop the faith, but to define it. Their business
was to repress error, not to discover truth ; to protect,
not to expand, the original deposit. They were not
commissioned to annex territory, but only to mark out
ancient boundaries with greater clearness.1 Not that the
Church is precluded from prosecuting theological inquiry.
The development of theology has proceeded, and will pro
ceed; and it will move all the faster when allowed to proceed
with perfect freedom of discussion. The business then of
the Oecumenical Councils has been to guard the funda
mentals of the faith. And just in proportion as the later
Councils claiming to be Oecumenical have forgotten their
true function, will be the doubtfulness of their claim to
true Oecumenicity. Without presuming here to decide the
question of the title to Oecumenicity of all the Councils
which claim it, we may point out that there are four
Councils — those of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and
Chalcedon — which on account of the important subjects
with which they deal, and the practically universal recep
tion of their decrees, occupy a position of far greater
prominence in history than any others. Like the four
Gospels, or the Temple of the Living God which "standeth
four-square," these four great Councils represent four
essential aspects of the truth concerning the Person of
Christ. As Hooker reminds us, the four words dAi^o)?,
TeAtoj?, dSicu/o€Ta>9, do-vyxvTios, " truly, perfectly, indivisibly,
distinctly," which we owe to their decisions, embrace within

1 "These decisions do, it is contended, simply express in a new
form without substantial addition the Apostolic teaching as it is found
in the New Testament." GORE, Bampton Lectures, IV. p. 96. " They
are intended to say ' No ' rather than ' Yes,' to deny rather than to
teach." Ibid., p. 106. See also above, p. 156.

394 THE CREED.

their compass "all heresies which touch the Person of
Jesus Christ."1

The number of Councils claiming to be Oecumenical is
seven.2 With regard to other Councils, they are either
General or Provincial. Councils such as those held at the
Lateran, at Trent, and at the Vatican may be supposed to
belong to the former class. The vast majority of Councils
cited by theologians belong to the latter class. Some
Councils, whose canons have been recognized by being
adopted en Hoc at the Sixth General Council at Constanti
nople in 692, were Councils of heretical bishops.3 The
Council of Laodicea, for instance, consisted of semi-Arian
bishops. But none of these Councils can claim to be
Oecumenical. For some of them, as we have just seen,
were composed of heretics; others were simply Western
Councils. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) — to say
nothing of the Vatican Council in 1870 — was not even a
fair representation of the Western Church; for the Church of
England and the Protestant Churches, which as yet had not
formally seceded, or been lawfully ejected, from the Roman
communion, were excluded from it.4 As for Provincial
Councils, whether early or late, it should be distinctly
understood that their decrees, except so far as they give

1 Eccl Pol. V. liv. 10.

2 [These seven Councils are the four already mentioned, the two
Councils held at Constantinople in 553 and 680, and the Second
Council of Nicaea in 787. The two Councils held at Constantinople
dealt with some after consequences of the Nestorian and Eutychian
heresies respectively. For the Second Council of Nicaea see p. 293.]

3 The Sixth General Council, though attended by Papal legates,
does not seem ever to have been formally recognized by the Roman
Church.

4 If some of these had ceased to be ruled by bishops, yet many
persons must have remained in them whose ordination to the priest
hood could not be disputed, and who therefore had a right to be heard.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 395

evidence of the theory and practice of the time at which
they were held, are not so binding on the conscience of an
English Churchman as the resolutions passed at the last
sitting of our own Convocations of Canterbury and York.
And as few of the strongest advocates of Church authority
are accustomed to regard the resolutions of our own
Provincial Councils as outside a Churchman's right of
criticism, it seems hardly reasonable to call upon him
for implicit obedience to the decrees of a Provincial Synod
held in some other part of the world many centuries ago.
The expressed opinion of any body of Churchmen, of
whatever age, ought certainly to be treated with respect.
And the more general the Council, the more respect its
decisions should receive at our hands. But the conscience
of a Catholic Churchman is not absolutely bound by such
decisions. And when we consider the violent means which
were often taken to arrive at them — the abuse of temporal
power on which very often they must be admitted to rest,
and the character of the age in which they were arrived
at — Catholic Churchmen may well rejoice that such is the
case.1

If it be asked whether it is possible for the Church to
review the decisions of her Oecumenical Councils, our
answer must be that it will be time enough for us to
discuss such a question when her members call upon her
to do so. The Church Catholic has never proclaimed her
own infallibility. And the Bible, though it predicates
indestructibility of the Church,2 has never actually predi
cated infallibility of her. It has rather seemed to imply

1 The cases of Berengarius, John Huss, and Jerome of Prague, to
say nothing of the more systematic suppression of fair and free
inquiry by direct and cruel religious persecution, are instances of
what has been referred to in the text.

2 Matt. xvi. 18. This remark is made by Archbishop MAGEE in
his volume entitled Christ the Light of all Scripture, Appendix, note a.

396 THE CREED.

that it is only gradually that she shall be guided into all
the truth.1 Every one of her members is therefore as free
to go over the ground again which she has gone over in the
past, as a man is free to investigate for himself the grounds
on which we believe in the rotundity of the earth, or the
nature of the law of gravitation. This last task may be
unnecessary, but it is certainly permissible. The only
proviso in inquiries of this kind is one which, absurd as
it may seem, has been shown to be practically necessary.
The inquirer who doubts the infallibility of the Church
must not be profoundly convinced of his own. He must
therefore be willing to treat with due respect the con
victions of hundreds of millions of brother Churchmen,
many of whom may not unreasonably be supposed to have
been as wise as himself. In other words, humility is a
very necessary characteristic of the seeker after religious
truth. It is here where popular Protestantism has fre
quently been so much at fault. The idea that one man's
opinion is quite as good — not as another's, but as that of
hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of others — is not
calculated to assist a man in his inquiry into things divine.
The gift of the Spirit is not vouchsafed to this or that
particular person alone, but in its measure to each member
of the Church. We are bound to respect the presence
of that gift in our brethren — still more among large bodies
of our brethren. And yet, "if anything be revealed to
him who is sitting by, let the first keep silence."2 It is
quite possible that new light on a point which has been
supposed to be satisfactorily settled may dawn upon one
who has given time and attention to the subject, and he
may turn out eventually to be in the right, and the majority
who have opposed him in the wrong. This has continually
happened since freedom of inquiry was restored to some
1 John xvi. 13. a 1 Cor, xiv. 30.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 397

portions of the Church at the Reformation. Great changes,
for instance, have occurred of late in the way in which
men regard such doctrines as Predestination, Election,
Atonement, and the future condition of the departed. The
doctrine of the Incarnation has of late been very generally
replaced in the position it held in early times as the point
of departure of the Christian scheme. And all this change
has been brought about by the restoration of perfect freedom
of discussion. There are no longer civil punishments for
heterodoxy. And not only so, but the appeals to men's
passions in religious matters — the habit, once so universal,
of calling upon them to prejudge, instead of examining the
questions submitted to them — are happily getting out of
date. The calm light of argument, combined with the
spiritual intuition granted to those who have meditated long
and earnestly on the deeper mysteries of our religion, have
done more to open men's eyes to those deeper things of God
than centuries of denunciation and persecution. Therefore
it would seem we should rather encourage inquirers to go
over again for themselves the questions which the Church
Catholic has already decided, than dissuade them from doing
so. We need apprehend no danger whatever from such a
course if we are convinced that the decisions of the Catholic
Church are sound. The most orthodox professors of science
do not forbid their pupils from examining and testing the
propositions of Euclid, the Principia of Newton, the formulae
on which the principles of astronomy, physiology, or any
other science are supposed to depend. On the contrary,
they invite, or even compel, the student to do so. There
is only one point on which reserve is necessary. A man
is not publicly authorized to teach any science unless he
accepts the principles on which men of science are generally
agreed. We should not consider a man qualified to teach
geography who insisted that the earth was flat, or to teach

398 THE CREED.

astronomy if he maintained that the attraction of the
heavenly bodies varied directly as their distance. In like
manner no man can fairly claim to hold the position of a
teacher in the Christian Church who denies the principles of
Christian theology which have been agreed upon from the
very first.

The Universal Church, therefore, at least in the present
day, permits, and her more enlightened members are inclined
to encourage, the fullest and freest inquiry into the first
principles of her doctrine. She appeals, on behalf of the
dogmatic truths which she holds herself commissioned to
teach, to the words of Christ Himself, and of those whom
He sent forth to proclaim the spiritual facts on which His
Church is founded. She further invites men to scrutinize
the original documents in which the faith of Christ is
enshrined with the utmost minuteness, as well as the
evidence for their genuineness. She expects, of course
that those who assume the position of teachers within her
pale should have satisfied themselves of the truth of her
doctrines before they ask permission to teach. Before they
assume that responsible office she demands that they shall
have exchanged the position of inquirers for that of con
vinced disciples. And with regard even to inquirers
themselves, if the Church challenges investigation into
her fundamental positions, it is not because she is doubtful
of their truth, but because she is convinced of it. She
believes that, so far as the proclamation of those first
principles is concerned, she is divinely secured from error.
If she does not believe herself possessed of an infallible
power to decide every theological question which may arise,
she believes that she is endowed with an unerring instinct, by
which she can detect any error which may prove fatal to the
message she has received authority from Christ to proclaim.

There has been apparently some confusion of thought

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 399

in some quarters in regard to the powers of Oecumenical
Councils on points of discipline. Their decrees, as well as
the decrees of Councils which are not Oecumenical, have
been cited as equally authoritative for the English Church
in the nineteenth century as for the Christian Church at
large in the fourth or fifth. This idea is based upon an
entire misconception of the rights of Oecumenical Councils,
and even of the Catholic Church herself. For the Catholic
Church has never been commissioned to lay down positive
rules to bind the Church for all time. Even in her doc
trinal decrees, as we have seen, she simply declares and
defines the faith. She can impose no new doctrines, how
ever reasonable or probable those doctrines may be. She
can but state what has been handed down as essential
truth from the very beginning, and what conflicts with
such essential truth. Yet she enjoys the perpetual presence
within her of the Spirit, and no exercise of that gift
in one age can prejudice its exercise in another age,
the conditions of which are very different. As a matter
of fact, the disciplinary Canons of no Council whatever
have been held by the Catholic Church to be binding,
nor even the practice of Jesus Christ and His Apostles
themselves.1 No Christian now feels bound by the rules
of the Council of Jerusalem, even though promulgated on
Apostolic authority.2 The canon of the Council of Nicaea,
which forbids the translation of bishops, has been a dead
letter in the West for centuries. Similarly the canons of
the other Oecumenical Councils have not been held to be
universally binding. Thus the expressions "a Catholic
custom," "a Catholic practice," so common in men's

1 The Church in very early times abolished, for reasons which
appeared to her sufficient, the practice of receiving Holy Communion
during and after supper, a practice which our Lord sanctioned when
He instituted that Holy Sacrament, and which the Apostles continued
after His Ascension, 2 Acts xv. 28, 29.

f 400 THE CREED.

mouths just now, are, as frequently used, incompatible
with the traditions of the Catholic Church. There are no
Catholic practices, if we except the two Sacraments, the rite
of Confirmation, and possibly we have a right to add, the
hallowing of the first day of the week, and the retention in
the Church of the threefold order in the Christian ministry.
On all other points the Church in any part of the world is
free to adapt her rules to the circumstances in which she finds
herself. Ancient and widely-extended customs there are, no
doubt, which no right-minded man would think of brushing
rudely aside. A respect for Christian antiquity is inseparable
from the idea of the true Christian. At the same time, the
assertion of our Christian liberty, and the subordination of
the letter to the spirit of ecclesiastical regulations, is at the
present moment quite as necessary a duty as reverence for
the traditions of a sacred past. Any regard for the regula
tions of the past which holds us back from grappling freely
and boldly with the special difficulties of our own time — any
reference to rules which the Church found necessary when
men of corrupt and debased minds flocked into the Church
with their heathen prejudices only partially eradicated, or
when the old Koman Empire was falling to pieces, and
society was hopelessly disorganized, or when the forms of
modern society were just arising out of the chaos consequent
on the dissolution of the ancient order — any reference to
such rules as obligatory, when it is calculated to hamper us
in our conflict with the evils of our own age, must be
regarded as a most unjustifiable surrender of the true
position and powers of the Church of Christ.1

Another point must not be left out of sight. The
Church of Christ does not, as many at the present day
seem to suppose, consist solely of the clergy. The laity

t1 It is a principle of the Canon Law that if a Canon has not been
enforced by the proper authority for forty years, it becomes ipso facto
void. This principle is called the principle of non-user.}

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 401

are as integral a part of her as those who have been
chosen to be her rulers and guides; but for centuries in
the Churches of the West the rights of the laity have
been withdrawn from them.1 One simple duty alone was
for ages supposed to be theirs, namely, submission. Share
in the government of the Church in those times they had
none. But this state of things is opposed to the idea
involved in the word Church, to the practice of its first
founders, and to the spirit of our own age. It is opposed
to the idea of the Church, because the Church is repre
sented to us as an organic whole, in the work of which
every member has a share in action and responsibility.2
It is opposed to the practice of the Church, for at the
Council of Jerusalem, though the Apostles and elders only
debated the question, the assent of the Church at large was
obtained before the promulgation of the decree.3 And, not
to multiply instances, St. Paul bade the Corinthian Church
assemble as a body to carry out the sentence he pronounced
against the incestuous person.4 That autocracy in any shape
is contrary to the spirit of our own age needs no demonstra
tion, arid we may be sure that a persistent adherence to
such a spirit in the administration of our affairs can only
issue in the alienation of the faithful laity, and that it
will delay for an indefinite time that movement towards
the reabsorption of orthodox Nonconformity into our pale
which has already commenced, and which gives such
excellent promise for the future. In early days none were

1 "Gradually the influence of the laity, as telling in any direct
and legitimate way upon the counsels of the Church, diminished
till it expired altogether." Bishop MOBERLY, Bampton Lectures,
p. 114. In a note he illustrates this gradual exclusion, and gives
the remark of the Greek commentator Zonaras, that the Council of
Laodicea "hindered" not only the laity, but even the priests them
selves from taking any share in the appointment of bishops.

2 Eph. iv. 16 ; Col. ii. 19. 3 Acts xv. 22, 23,
4 1 Cor. v. 4. Cf. Acts vi. 3 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 3, 4<

2 D

402 THE CREED.

permitted to hold the responsible office of guide of souls
without the consent of the flocks to which they ministered,
though once admitted they could not be capriciously ejected
without grave scandal.1 The Nonconforming bodies, as
was perhaps natural, have travelled too far in the opposite
direction, and their ministers, in a great number of cases,
are more absolutely dependent on their flocks than is
good either for flock or minister. But the non-established
Churches of the Anglican communion have solved the
question of the rights of the laity satisfactorily enough,8
and so have the Old Catholic Churches which are slowly
extending their numbers and influence on the Continent.

The principles thus laid down apply to another aspect of
the question. The Old Catholic movement on the Continent
has given fresh extension to a principle of which until 1870
the Anglican Church had been the chief exponent in the
West from the time of the Reformation onward. This is

1 CLEMENT, First Epistle to Corinthians, xliv. The presbyters, he
says, in the various Christian communities were in the first instance
appointed by the Apostles, and then by other men of reputation, with
the consent of the whole Church. These persons he (or rather the Church
of Rome) thinks may not be lawfully removed from their ministry.

2 Without the danger which was apprehended some forty-five years
ago by men of authority and experience like Pusey and Keble.
See MOBERLY, Hampton Lectures, p. 322, note. Bishop Moberly
refers to this subject of the powers of the laity in the lectures
themselves. In p. 70 he remarks that the decrees of the Council
at Jerusalem mentioned in Acts xv. did not ' ' issue from one
Apostle as from a monarch, nor from the college of the Apostles
"as from an oligarchy, but from the Apostles and elders and
brethren as from a great constitutional body which must all
speak, according to its position and degree, before the full voice of
the Holy Spirit can be held to have spoken through its empowered
human organs with authority unquestionable." In pp. 110-113 he
discusses the evidence in Christian antiquity for the powers of the
laity, and cites in their favour Tertullian, Cyprian, Chrysostom, as
well as the Councils of Carthage held by Cyprian, of Eliberis in 305,
and of Toledo in 393.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 403

the existence of National Churches. The Church of Rome
has sought to impose an external authority and one rigid
and unvaried set of forms and rules throughout the
Christian world, and has eventually succeeded in her
endeavour. No doubt she has gained much by the majesty
of her attitude and the precision with which her battalions
march when ordered. But that advantage, great though it
be, is very dearly purchased. In every country in which
she is influential, the Roman Church is engaged of necessity
in a conflict with the State, and her officers are felt
to be the vassals of a foreign power. The principle of
National Churches, though not mentioned in Scripture, is
clearly within the limits of adaptability permitted to the
Christian community, as well as in harmony with man's
nature. Involving as it does an appeal to instincts as
powerful as local custom, love of home and country, it
places the Christian Church in the most favourable position
for influencing mankind. Uniformity of ritual, though it
may strike the imagination of the traveller, has never been
a principle of the Catholic Church.1 An intense attach
ment to their National Churches, with their own special
rites and ceremonies, may be observed among the Russians,
the Bulgarians, the Greeks, as well as among the members
of the Church of England. Tlie Old Catholic Churches
have wisely recognized the strength of this feeling, and
in every country in which congregations exist, whether in
Holland, the country of their birth, in France, in Switzer
land, in Germany, in Austria, in Italy,2 each national

1 AUGUSTINE, in his Confessions (VI. 2), mentions customs of the
African Church which Ambrose had forbidden at Milan. [See also
SOCRATES, Eccl. Hist. V. 22, and SOZOMEN, Eccl. Hist. VII. 19.]

2 There are episcopal congregations unconnected with the Roman
communion in Spain, Portugal, and Mexico, but they are not, strictly
speaking, Old Catholic bodies. The bishop in Spain was consecrated
by Irish, and the congregations in Mexico are superintended by
American bishops. [These last have recently consecrated Bishops for.

iilj Cuba, and the Philippines.]

404 THE CREED.

communion has adopted its own particular form and order
of worship. The Protestant Churches of Germany, Switzer
land, and Holland are also National Churches. Whether
this movement in favour of the idea of National Churches
is destined to spread, as many are inclined to helieve, or
whether it is not, the Anglican Churchman who is attached
to the principles of the English Reformation cannot fail to
be interested in the new developments of the tendency
toward the system of National Churches on the Continent,
and to hope that Europe may one day be overspread by
congregations in which a regard is felt for national sym
pathies, as well as for Catholic truth, Apostolic order, and
Evangelic freedom — congregations which prize internal union
above external uniformity, which agree to differ in details,
theological and practical, but which hold firmly " the faith
once for all delivered to the saints."

It is this combination of regard for the traditions of the
past with freedom to adapt our rules and forms of thought
to the needs of the present — of respect for authority with
the fullest possible exercise of individual liberty — which
constitutes the true Catholic principle. We may term it
Constitutional Catholicism, as distinguished on the one
hand from Roman autocracy, and on the other from the
anarchy to which popular Protestantism, at least among the
Anglo-Saxon race, seems to have tended.1 A church which
is true to her mission, whicji at once unwaveringly proclaims
her fundamental doctrines, and permits the fullest and freest
developments of them ; a Church which, both in theory and
practice, maintains at once the authority of her clergy and
the inalienable rights of her laity — such a Church is one
against which " the gates of Hades shall not prevail." She
will continue to teach the "faith once for all delivered to
the saints,2 and yet, relying on the promise of the Spirit,3

1 A movement in the direction of Federation has recently been iiv
augurated. a Jude 3. * John xvi. 13.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 405

and of the perpetual presence of her Lord,1 she will follow
the laws of development of a healthy human society, of
which the expansion of the Anglo-Saxon race has of late
supplied us with so many instances. She will go on in her
noble and beneficent mission, casting aside the swaddling
clothes of the past, as they become too contracted for her
present needs. As an acute French thinker has put it,2 the
Church whose eyes are turned backward, like those of Lot's
wife, is a decaying and declining Church.3 The Catholic
Church, like human society, must be progressive. She will
heal her schisms, compose her differences, bring about cor
porate reunion in precise proportion to the degree in which
she learns to distinguish fundamentals from their develop
ments, to prize freedom above tradition. In days to come
even the Church of Rome will be compelled to fall into
line with the advance of human thought. The recent
history of that Church in the United States points to the
eventual downfall of her system of personal government, by
reason of her members becoming gradually permeated by
modern ideas.4 Her inclination of late to show sympathy
with Socialism, so opposed to all her post -Reformation
traditions, is another instance of the same tendency. We
may hope that the tide of Divine Life in the Universal
Church of Christ will continue to flow in the direction of a
firm maintenance of essential truth, combined with the
greatest liberty in non-essentials, until the times of restora
tion of all things, " the seasons of refreshing from the

1 Matt, xxviii. 20. a Pere Hyacintlie.

3 "The good Archbishop [Tait] was one of that small, but let us
hope increasing, class of divines who see before, and not merely into
the past. There are men whose eyes are apparently so set in their
heads as those of such timid animals as the hare and the horse, and
who are adapted to see better behind than before." HEARD, Old and
New Theology, p. 21.

4 [Her collapse in France has been amazing, and a similar collapse
seems imminent in Spain and Italy. The only thing which may
bring about a revival of Rome's power is a desertion of the fundamental
principles of Christianity on the part of other Churches.]

406 ?HE CREED.

Presence of the Lord."1 May she proceed on her majestic
march, "casting down imaginations and every high thing
that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing
every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,"2
until by the work of her ministers, and by the assimilation
of Christian principles on the part of the community at
large, " we all attain unto the unity of the faith and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto
the measure of the stature of the .fulness of Christ."3

NOTE A. — For information on the Roman controversy, the
student should consult JEWEL'S Apology, Bishop HALL'S No Peace
with Rome, Archbishop LAUD in controversy with the Jesuit
Fisher, Bp. JKUEMY TAYLOR'S Dissuasive Against Popery, and
other works of learned Anglican divines, of which an exhaustive
list will be found in Bishop CHRISTOPHER WORDSWORTH'S
Theophilus Anglicanus. Of more modern works the following
may be mentioned : Dr. LITTLED ALE'S Plain Reasons Against
Joining the Church of Rome, and Words for Truth ; Canon GORE'S
Roman Catholic Claims; MAHAN'S Exercise of Faith; PULLER'S
Primitive Church and the See of Rome; Dr. PUSEY'S Eirenicon;
Sir W. PALMER'S Treatise on the Church ; the Letters of Janus ; and
Messrs. BRINCKMAN and MOORE'S Anglican Brief Against the
Roman Claims.

NOTE B. On Episcopal Churches Abroad. — The Old Catholic
body has extended its borders very considerably of late, though
sometimes, it is to be feared, without sufficient consideration for
the feelings of other Episcopal bodies. It has consecrated a
Bishop over the discontented Poles and Czechs in the United
States. It has consecrated a Bishop for discontented Roman
Catholics in England. And recently (1909) some 200,000 members
of the Franciscan Third Order in Poland, with thirty-three priests
and sixty-seven congregations, have asked for, and received, the
consecration of a Bishop to superintend them, as they have been
unjustly, as they believe, excommunicated by the Pope. The
growth of Old Catholicism has been slow, but it has been steady.
And its rate of increase is advancing. The causes of its steadiness
and cohesion have been (1) its acceptance of the teaching of the
undivided Church ; (2) its attachment to the principle of
Nationality ; (3) the place assigned to the laity in its system.

1 Acts iii. 19, 21. ' 2 Cor. x. 5. 3 Eph. iv. 13.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD, AND
THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME

fPHESE words may be translated, " We await a Kesurrec-
JL tion of the Dead, and the life of the coming Aeon, or
age." The Apostles' Creed has "the Resurrection [or a
Resurrection] of the flesh."1 This phrase was a cause of
some difficulty to theologians in early times. "Flesh and
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God"2 was a passage
of Scripture quoted against it. But the literal force of
these words cannot be pressed. St. Paul was in the habit
of using the word <rdp£ (flesh) to express man's unregenerate
nature. And the context, " neither doth corruption inherit
incorruption," proves that St. Paul's words refer to cor
ruptible flesh and blood. That the Resurrection of Jesus
Christ was a material resurrection has been shown above,3
though the blood of the psychic body may have been
superseded by some more subtle principle of life.4 This is
expressly stated in the words, " A spirit hath not flesh and
bones, as ye behold Me having."5 And our resurrection, if
we be indeed partakers of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ,6

1 So in the Latin "carnis resurrection em. " Our Church gives a
literal translation in her Baptismal office, and a paraphrase, "the
Resurrection of the body " in her daily offices.

2 1 Cor. xv. 50. 3 p. 227. 4 See p. 229. 5 Luke xxiv. 39.
6 Rom. vi. 5 ; 1 Cor. xv. 22 ; Phil. iii. 10 ; Col. ii. 12 ; iii. 1 j

1 Peter iii. 21.

407

408 THE CREED.

may naturally be expected to follow the laws of His. This
is asserted in passages such as 1 Corinthians xv. 35-54, and
2 Corinthians v. 1-4. The relation of our natural body
to our spiritual body, we learn from the first of these
passages, is as that of a seed to the plant which springs
from it. Both are material. Both possess a mysterious,
impalpable, invisible property called life; and this life is
communicated from the one to the other by means which
we do not in the least understand. As we have already
seen,1 we are no more entitled to regard the spiritual body
as immaterial than we are entitled to regard our present or
psychic body as such. The words " spiritual body " simply
mean a material body adapted to the needs of the human
spirit, as the words "psychic body" mean a material body
adapted to the needs of the human soul. The change
which takes place at the Resurrection may be gathered
from the teaching of Scripture to be the expulsion of all
that is corruptible or mortal in our bodies by the action of
a principle of incorruptibility and immortality imparted
to us at the Resurrection. This is apparently St. Paul's
meaning when he speaks, in the passages above cited, of
"the corruptible putting on incorruption," and of "mortality
being swallowed up by life." But the Resurrection must
not be conceived of as a resurrection of material particles.
Such a supposition is precluded by St. Paul's illustration
of the process of resurrection by the relation of the seed
to the plant springing from it. The life in each case is
the same. It is transmitted according to definite laws of
continuity from the one to the other. But in the case
of the seed and the plant, the material particles of each
are entirely different. " So is it with the resurrection of
the dead." The neglect to observe this truth, tending as
it has done to the idea of a purely material resurrection,

1 p. 228.

THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME. 409

has been the cause of many difficulties. It has been ob
jected, and with reason,1 that the same material particles have
formed part of many human bodies in succession, and that
therefore the resurrection of the identical human body which
was committed to the grave is an impossibility. But as
Bishop Butler has shown,2 personal identity does not depend
upon the identity of the material particles of which the body
is composed. It is, indeed, impossible that it should be so.
For physicists have contended that the material particles of
the human body are in a continual flux, and that at the end
of a period of seven years scarcely one single particle remains
in the body which was there at the beginning of that period.
Yet no man doubts or disputes the personal identity of the
being, the material particles of whose body have undergone
so radical a change. Personal identity depends, in reality,
upon the continuity of individual consciousness. Life is a
power which enables its possessor to seize on the material
particles with which he comes into contact, and to group
them in such manner as is needed for the performance of
the particular functions he is called upon to fulfil. The
analogy of our Lord's body leads us to the belief that this
grouping of particles after the Resurrection will have some
relation to the past history, or, if the term be preferred, the
consciousness in the past, of the individual by whose life it
is effected. Our Lord's Body bare the marks of the wounds
He had received at His Crucifixion. Just so, we may believe,
will the stamp of our character and history in this life be
indelibly impressed on the body we shall receive if we are
found worthy to attain to the Resurrection of the Dead.
That body will, moreover, be endowed with similar faculties
to those displayed by the Body of our Lord. It will
know neither hunger nor thirst.3 It will need no sleep to

1 [As far back as the second century. See the remarkable treatise
of Athenagoras on the Resurrection, chaps, iv.-vii.]

2 Dissertation on Personal Identity.

3 See p. 227. Also Rev. vii. 16.

410

recruit its exhausted energies. It will be incapable of
fatigue or pain.1 It will not be bound down, as is our
present body, to perpetual contact with the earth, nor
condemned to the slow rate of progress at which we
miserable worms are compelled to travel, but will flash
from place to place with a rapidity inconceivable to us
in our present sense-bound condition.2 Words fail us
wherewith to paint the glorious .privileges which will be
ours when the restitution of all things has come. "Eye
hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into
the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared
for them which love Him."3 And so the Catholic Church,
at the Easter season, has not ceased for centuries to sing
of the glories of the Resurrection-body :

"Oh, how glorious and resplendent,

Fragile body, shalt thou be ;
When endowed with so much beauty,

Full of health, and strong, and free,
Full of vigour, full of pleasure,

That shall last eternally."

The belief in the Resurrection-body has suffered consider
able eclipse among us since the Reformation, by reason of
the reaction against the Roman Catholic doctrine of
Purgatory. The abuses connected with that doctrine, to
which we shall presently recur, drove many Protestant
theologians to the opposite extreme of denying the Christian
doctrine of the intermediate state. In the place of this
doctrine it was taught that the soul, at its departure from
the body, was immediately transported to the realms of
eternal bliss or eternal woe.4 The doctrine of the resurrection

1 Rev. xxi. 4. 2 As in the case of our Lord's Body. See p. 227.

3 1 Cor. ii. 9. The Revised Version is more literal here, but does
not better express the Apostle's meaning.

4 The habit of speaking of the departed as "in heaven" is a result
of this belief which still tends to weaken the belief in the inter
mediate state.

LIFE OP fHE WORLD to COME. 411

of the body, though perhaps not categorically denied, had
thus practically vanished from the Christian consciousness,
and the belief of the majority of English people was one
described by Justin Martyr as being the belief " neither of
Christians nor Jews." It was, in fact, the Platonic belief
in the immortality of the soul, which had come to be
substituted for the Christian belief in the resurrection of
the body. The writer of these pages well remembers how,
when in the years 1859 and 1860 he put to the members
of a confirmation class the question, " "Will our bodies rise
again?" he was met, on the part of every one of its
members, with the immediate, unhesitating answer, "No."
Even up to the present time he has found intelligent, well-
educated confirmation candidates quite unable to answer
the question, in spite of their weekly repetition of the
Apostles' Creed. And it is not too much to say that in
many country parishes the doctrine of Plato will still be
found to have almost entirely replaced the doctrine of the
Christian Church. It is therefore of very considerable
importance that this article of the Christian Creed should
be definitely and clearly taught.

This brings us to the important question, Under what
conditions and reservations will the baptized Christian be
permitted to enjoy the everlasting life promised to each
believer as his heritage ? It will be recognized that a most
profound change has been taking place in the minds of
Englishmen during the last fifty years on this point, and
that the influence of this change is continually increasing.
Sixty years ago it was firmly believed by most persons
supposed to hold orthodox opinions, to whatever section
of Christians they may have belonged, that eternal punish
ment consisted in an endless continuance of frightful
tortures, of which never-ending material flames formed
one important part, and mental agonies of an equally

412 THE CREED.

excruciating character formed another. All Protestants,
again, including a vast majority of the members of the
Church of England, believed that there were no punish
ments which were not eternal, and that at the moment
of death each soul passed at once to eternal happiness or
misery. The first shock given to this almost universal
belief among the members of the Reformed bodies was
the reassertion of the doctrine of the intermediate state
by the writers of the Tracts for the Times and their
followers. The second was the controversy on the Eternity
of Future Punishment, aroused by the teaching of the late
F. D. Maurice, in his Theological Essays, in regard to the
meaning of the word cuojvios, and intensified by his subse
quent expulsion from his Professorship at King's College,
London. These controversies have produced a complete
revulsion in popular opinion on the question of future
punishment, as evidenced by the appearance of such
works as Dr. Cox's Salvator Mwidi, Dean Farrar's Larger
Hope, and the like.1 The result, in one respect, of this
violent revulsion of feeling has been extremely mischievous.
The Christian public at large may be said at the present
moment to have no definite opinion whatever upon the
subject; and such opinion as there is assumes with many
the form of a general though vague disbelief in future retri
bution. This is undoubtedly disastrous in its effects upon
the seriousness of our theological convictions. But it is the
price we have to pay for our religious freedom, and it is the
natural recoil of the bow which has so long been rigidly
bent in an opposite direction.

Mr. Maurice's views on the actual meaning of the word

1 A volume of Essaj^s, under the title of The Wider Hope, has clone
much service by collecting the various opinions now held on these
most important subjects. [Dean Plumptre's Spirits in Prison deals
with this great question in a broader, more learned, and more impartial
spirit than most other writers. The book is a mine of trustworthy
information on it.]

THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME. 413

were not very definite. He appears to have thought
that it; had nothing whatever to do with duration, but was
equivalent to "fixed," "definite," "unchangeable." There
can be little doubt that the real meaning of the word is
"that which is always existing."1 It does not, like some
other words which the writers in the Bible might have
used, suggest the idea of an endless succession in time,
though it may fairly be regarded as including it. But
when connected, as it is in some remarkable passages,
with KoAao-ts, it suggests two considerations. First of all,
if the chastisement must be regarded as always existing, it
does not necessarily follow that the individual may never
be released from the operation of that chastisement. And
next, if KoAao-is, as distinguished from ri/xw/)ta, is correctly
supposed to have the sense of discipline ivitTi a view to
improvement, the individual must of necessity be released
from such chastisement, appointed in the counsels of God
for the reformation of offenders, as soon as it has done
its work. A careful study of Holy Scripture has tended
to show that a good many passages which had been
pressed into the service of the traditional view had
been invested with many horrors by the imagination of
divines, which in their plain, literal, and grammatical sense
they by no means suggested. It has been further shown
that many passages, in the Old Testament for instance, had
nothing whatever to do with the subject of everlasting
punishment.2 The "hell" of the Authorised Version in

1 I am convinced that Dean Farrar's rendering, "Aeonian," or
"age-long," cannot be maintained in the face of the derivation
and scriptural use of the word, in spite of the support which it
doubtless received from the use of the word atuv for a long period
of time.

2 e.g., the Hebrew word Sheol, translated "hell" in our version,
frequently means merely "death," and cannot be shown to have been
identified in the minds of the Jews with any system of physical or
mental torture. So the " everlasting burnings " of Isaiah xxxiii. 14

414 THE CREED.

the parable or history of Dives and Lazarus is Hades,
or the intermediate state, and not that of final torment.
The "fire," therefore, spoken of in that narrative cannot
possibly have been a material fire, nor is there anything
said about its endlessness. So, too, it was contended that
not only had the Authorised Version added unnecessarily
to the terrors of Mark ix. 43 by translating the word
ao-/3«rros, "that never shall be quenched," but that
the whole passage, referring, as it clearly does, to the
corruption and burning of dead bodies, could have no
sort of reference to the torture of living bodies and
souls which had formed so prominent a feature of the
teaching of mediaeval and modern divines. It was
further remarked that in 2 Thess i. 9 "eternal (cuwvtoi/)
destruction" is spoken of (cf. ii. 8),1 and that we derive
a similar idea from the passage in Kev. xx. 14, where
" death and Hades," as well as those whose names were
not found in the Lamb's Book of Life, were "cast into
the lake of fire." It was argued that as the destruction
of death and Hades was obviously meant, they not being

have no reference whatever to the soul, but refer to the devas
tation of Palestine by a conqueror with fire and sword. As Mr.
HEARD aptly puts it (Old and New Theology, p. 184), there was
a considerable use in past times of "proof- texts," in which "the
Sheol of one dispensation is confounded with the Gehenna ol
another."

1 Some writers have denied that 0Xe0pos, airwXeta, and the like
always mean destruction. But it is certainly the obvious and usual
meaning of 6\\v/uu and its derivatives. Where, therefore, it is inter
preted otherwise, some proof should be brought forward that this is
its meaning here. The "Lawless One " is said in 2 Thess. ii. 8 either
to be "consumed" or "slain" (there is some diversity of reading
here) in the first portion of the verse, and to be "done away"
(Karapytd), literally, deprived of all energy) in the second. Observe also
that in the Revised Version of Rev. xx. 14, which follows another
reading, the lake of fire itself is said to be the " second death,"

THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME. 415

living beings capable of everlasting fiery torment, so the
destruction of those whose names were not found in the
Book of Life is also meant. Attempts have further been
made, though with less success, to explain away sucli
passages as Rev. xiv. 11, "and the smoke of their torment
goeth up into the ages of ages"; and Rev. xx. 10, where
the devil, the beast, and the false prophet, having already
(Rev. xix. 20) been cast into the "lake of fire that
burneth with brimstone," are said to be condemned to
be " tormented unto the ages of ages."

It will be clear, from what lias just been said, that the
question of the future of the wicked is a difficult one —
one which ought to be approached with the utmost caution
and reverence. If on the one hand we are forbidden to
read our own preconceived ideas into the express state
ments of Scripture — and surely in so tremendous a matter
wre can have no right to do so — on the other we have
no right to explain away direct assertions found in Holy
Writ. Neither can we claim the right, as some have
done, to reject peremptorily what appears to contradict
our "moral sense"; for that "moral sense" has been
considerably perverted by our own shortcomings. We see
moral questions "through a glass, darkly," by reason of
the infirmity of our moral vision. And \ve are certainly no
judges of what is adequate retribution for the determined,
obstinate, wilful rejection of God and opposition to His
Will. It were better in so weighty a matter to suspend
our judgment. The attitude of Abraham in earnest suppli
cation for Sodom, convinced, in spite of his doubts, that the
"Judge of all the earth" would "do right," were more
befitting on our part than that of positive assertion or
denial. We may do well to imitate the late Laureate,
beloved and lamented by many of us for the services he
has rendered to the cause of a pure, enlightened, progressive

416 THE CREED.

Christianity, when he tells us that on this awful subject he

was wont to fall

" with his weight of cares,
Upon the great world's altar-stairs
That slope through darkness up to God, "

even though the result was that he could but " faintly trust
the larger hope." l

There are three different schools of thought on this
question. First, there are those who still believe in the
everlasting punishment of the wicked. Next, there are
the Annihilationists, who hold the view that the obstinately
impenitent will be destroyed.2 Lastly, there are the Uni-
versalists, who hold that all will ultimately be restored to

1 In Memoriam, 55.

2 Mr. HEARD, in his striking chapter on Eschatology, in Old and
New Theology, says (pp. 252, 253) of the Annihilation theory, "It
assumes that man is inherently immortal, and only becomes mortal
by a fiat of Omnipotence, who, L, mercy to His victim, acts as the
executioner at some auto da f6 of the Inquisition, and gives the
coup de grdce, and puts an end to his suffering. Such a phrase as
annihilation is, if possible, a deeper reflection on the Divine Being
than the old dogma of eternal suffering, since it suggests that future
punishment is of the nature of torture, not retributive only, but
vindictive, so that we should have the double inconsistency to clear
up — that God should inflict such torture at all, and then, like a
Spanish inquisitor, huddle it up at the end as if ashamed of His own
ferocity." This ingenious objection, however, would not apply if the
punishment of sin be considered as organic. From that point of
view, sin, as the opposite of righteousness, would be regarded as first
causing pain to one's neighbour ; then, by the working of a natural
law, to oneself; and finally, as destroying by slow yet sure steps
the life which God has given. Mr. Heard himself (p. 257) seems to
recognize the reasonableness of this contention. He says, ' ' What
we cannot surrender is the very opposite truth, that evil is something
inherently self-destructive, and carrying with it the principle of its
own dissolution. . . . All evil is destructive of the organism it attacks
[the italics are mine] ; whether it be plant, or animal, or man, in any
case disease is incipient death." This reasoning seems to dispose of
the striking, but one-sided, passage we have quoted above.

THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME. 417

the Divine favour. This last theory, though it claims
support from Holy Writ, appears opposed to some of its
plainest declarations.1 It should, however, be remarked
that the theory of the everlasting punishment of the
wicked, as held at the present time, is generally held with
considerable reservations. First of all, the nature of the
physical and mental tortures of the lost is considerably
modified. Next, it is believed that a good deal of the
punishment which takes place hereafter will be remedial
in its character. It is no longer supposed that sin, being
an offence against an Infinite Being, must of necessity be
visited with an infinite punishment. There is such a thing
hereafter, so our Lord Himself tells us, as being " punished
with few stripes"2 — a phrase which could hardly be used
of a punishment which lasted for ever. The controversy
between Archdeacon Farrar and the late Dr. Pusey ended
in an agreement between them that eternal punishment was
meted out only to those who obstinately and finally rejected
the offer of salvation through Christ. A Swedenborgian
writer — and some elements of Swedenborgianism, regarded
as a reaction from the popular theology of the early part of
the present century, are well worthy of notice — said, in a
Symposium on Everlasting Punishment,3 that all punishment
was organic — i.e., the natural result of conditions which had
been inwrought by man into his own moral being4 — and
that the final state of a wicked man, though loveless and
1 See p. 428. It ought not to be forgotten that such eminent
divines as Gregory of Nyssa and Theodore of Mopsuestia were
Universalists. See NEANDER, Eccl. Hist. iv. 445, 446. The former
of these was associated with his brother Basil and Gregory of
Nazianzus in enforcing the reception of the Nicene formula at the
Council of Constantinople. [See Universalism Asserted, by the late
Rev. T. Allin.] 2 Luke xii. 48.

3 In the Contemporary Review for 1878.

4 "Rightly considered, all divine punishment grows out of the
nature of the sin itself." HEARD, Old and New Theology, p. 254.

2 B

418 THE CREED.

hopeless, and dead to all nobler and better thoughts, might
not be one of indescribable agony and horror. And a recent
Roman Catholic writer on Hell committed himself to the
same view until he submitted to the contrary judgment of
the Holy See upon this weighty matter.

The most important contribution towards the solution of
this great mystery is to be found in the growth of sound
opinions on the question of the Intermediate State. After
the Reformation, as we have seen, the strong reaction from
the absurdities, incongruities, and abuses involved in the
mediaeval doctrine of Purgatory caused the doctrine of an
intermediate condition of the soul to fall into oblivion. Some
theologians even opposed it with vehemence, being unable to
distinguish it from the doctrine at which they had not un
naturally taken strong offence. But here, as elsewhere, it
was forgotten that all doctrines peculiar to the Roman Catholic
Church are perversions or exaggerations of real truths ; and
that the rejection of the truth itself, in the contention against
such perversions and exaggerations, has led, in too many
cases, to the surrender of the key of the position into the
adversary's hands. The Roman reaction in this country of late
years has been promoted, perhaps more than many of us have
supposed, by the feeling that, immoral in its tendency, and in
consistent with all sound conceptions of God as the mediaeval
doctrine of Purgatory may be, it is surpassed in both these re
spects by the doctrine which, until lately, may be said to have
held the field among ourselves.1 Still, the Roman doctrine
undoubtedly errs in building a vast fabric of romance on the
slender hints given us in the New Testament in regard to the
intermediate state. The notion that anyone on earth can tell us
the precise condition in which the departed are, and can exer
cise a definite and easily explained control over that condition,
is not only absolutely unwarranted by Scripture, but is con-

1 See pp. 411. 4125 420, 421,

THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME. 419

trary to sober reason.1 When, again, men are led to believe
that prayers offered before a certain privileged altar, or in
conformity with the conditions of some "indulgence" set
forth by authority, or that masses said at the petition of
the friends and relatives of one deceased, will relieve a man
from the natural consequences of his sin, it certainly, in the
case at least of a man known to possess pious or wealthy
relatives, appears to offer something approaching to impunity
to the sinner. To represent God as willing to abate the
severity of His righteous judgment in consideration of
ceremonies such as these, especially when payment for them
is demanded by His ministers, seems certainly to detract
from our conceptions of Him as a righteous ruler, and to
assimilate the idea of Him to that of a human potentate who
is not inaccessible to the blandishments of his favourites.
But the popular doctrine of sixty years since was still more
repugnant to the moral sense of thoughtful men, and still
more opposed to the true sense of Scripture and the true
tradition of the Catholic Church.2 For it not only

1 The Eastern Church decidedly rejects the Roman doctrine of
Pui'gatory.

2 " It lias been said, without contradiction, that the Old Theology
teachings on the subject of heaven and hell have caused more
infidelity than all the other dogmas of divines put together."
HEARD, Old and New Theology, p. 251. He adds (p. 262) some
remarks on "the immoral conception that a bare act of death-bed
repentance and faith will, in some magical way, waft a soul clean out
of one state into the other." He tells us how Barnum is reported in
the Pall Mall Gazette, April 1st, 1884, as saying of this doctrine, "A
pirate who has killed in cold blood a hundred men is caught, repents
on the gallows, and says, ' I am sorry for what I have done, and I
am going to Jesus.' A certain proportion of those he has killed — say
fifty per cent. — having been cut off in their sins without time for
repentance, are supposed to be damned. Is it conceivable, as con
sistent with the judgment of God, that the repentant pirate should
look over the battlements of heaven down upon these fifty whom he
sent to hell, and complacently congratulate his redeemed soul upon

420 THE CREED.

perverted, as the Roman doctrine did, but it entirely ignored
the teaching of Scripture concerning the intermediate state.
It held and taught opinions which, in Justin Martyr's view,
disqualified those who held them from assuming the title
of Christian.1 It taught that if a man had saving faith
at the moment of death, however obtained, and whatever
his previous character and habits might have been, he was
translated at once to the bliss of heaven. Sometimes,
though happily not often, the possession of this saving
faith was held to preclude the necessity even of repentance.
But it is obvious what an encouragement to ungodly living
was the hope thus held out, that by a few prayers on the
death-bed a man might attain to a blessedness as great as
could be attained by a life of the most exalted piety and

liis luck in having had time to repent before he was hanged ? " Mr.
Heard remarks that this "is crudely, and even coarsely, put." We
should hardly expect measured language from such a quarter. But
Mr. Heard is right when he adds that "the common conscience of
mankind is tested by extreme cases of this kind." He bids "the
intuitional school of Theology" lay these doctrines "before the
common people," and if it finds them "rejected with contempt," to
"take them back and revise them, and ascertain where the lurking
error may be." (p. 263.) He believes that the present age is at least
as well able to solve these problems as a society like that of the later
Roman Empire, "stricken with moral leprosy, and carrying with it the
seeds of its own dissolution." (p. 264.) We may not agree with these ex
pressions of opinion. But at least, before laying down with authority
the doctrine of the future condition of the soul, it is not too much to
ask that we shall consider it carefully in all its possible bearings*
The whole question of prayers for the dead is, it must be admitted,
one of great difficulty. But so is the whole question of intercessory
prayer. We may be sure that the "Judge of all the earth" will
do "right," whether we ask Him or not. Yet, on the other hand,
He has bidden us use prayer, just as we should make use of any
other force, the effects of which are known to us, and the power to
use which is in our hands. The Church of England has wisely left
this question to the judgment of the individual. While she does
not forbid prayers for the dead, she does not introduce them into her
public acts of worship.
1 See p. 220.

THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME. 421

self-denial. There can be little doubt that much of the
impiety and careless living we find at present around us
is due to the prevalence of such teaching among us in the
past. It is true that the doctrine was seldom proclaimed
by thoughtful teachers in all its native hideousness. But
it was not an unfair logical deduction from the premisses
they had laid down. And when men desired to enjoy the
pleasures of the world they were apt to sweep away all
the qualifications of the theory which the common sense
of the teacher suggested, and to make the most of the
hope held out by his incautious language.1

It is here that the value of recent theological discussion
on the condition of the departed comes in. Once let it be
admitted that there is an intermediate state, and that all
punishment is not of necessity eternal, and many of the
most serious difficulties involved in preaching the efficacy
of a death-bed repentance are found to disappear. We
have no right to assume, in the face of the story of
Dives and Lazarus, that there is no such thing as dis
ciplinary punishment hereafter. As we have seen, it may
be regarded as practically certain that the punishment of
Dives recorded in that story took place in the intermediate
state. The terms "Hades" and "Abraham's bosom," used
in it, tend most strongly to confirm that impression. The

1 Immoral conceptions of God always react on those who hold
them. The lax conception of the Roman Catholic leads to the easy
morality of Roman Catholic peoples. The fierce conceptions of
Puritanism have not unfrequently produced harshness, intolerance,
and vindictiveness in devout Puritan believers, and downright ur belief
among the people under their influence. "Protestant theologiana
complain that the popular notion of two states only after death — heaven
and hell, beatitude and damnation — and the consequent disuse of prayer
for the departed, ' has brought the people to the brink of doubt about
eternal life altogether.' " VON DOLLINGER, Lectures on the Reunion
of the Churches, p. 157. The last words in this citation are taken
from NEUMANN, Zdtschrift fur Luther. TheoL, p. 282.

422 THE CREED.

latter term clearly relates to the period of repose and calm
granted to one who has striven and suffered. It is nowhere
used to indicate the rapturous blessedness of heaven.1 If
we cordially accept this view we need not fear being
entangled in Roman error, for we are here in presence of
the truth which, as in all other cases of Roman corruption,
Rome has distorted. The evil of the Roman doctrine of
Purgatory does not consist in the assertions that punish
ment is strictly proportioned to desert, and that most of
those who die are neither fit for the eternal happiness of
heaven, nor can justly be consigned to the "eternal
fire prepared for the devil and his angels." It consists in
the exaggeration of the truth that our prayers and inter
cessions may possibly be of use to those who have gone
hence.2 It shows itself in the way in which this possibility
or probability has been taught as a certainty, and in the
definite system which has been built up on so very un
certain a foundation, lending itself, as it unquestionably
does, in practice to the most serious abuses, the most
slavish superstitions, and, we may add, to the grossest
absurdities. The Catholic Church in early times was wont

1 "Paradise," in 2 Cor. xii. 4, seems to be regarded as identical
with the "third heaven" of v. 2. But it is not probable that every
Christian who has hope of final salvation will be translated there at
death, as seems to be too often assumed. The early Church would
hardly have prayed for the repose and refreshment of the soul had
that been the primitive belief. Another assumption has perhaps been
too hastily made — namely, that the third is necessarily the highest
heaven. It may have been the lowest, or if there were supposed to
be seven heavens, as some have believed, it would represent a con
dition midway between the highest and the lowest form of eternal
happiness. See Commentaries on 2 Cor. xii. 1-4.

2 This doctrine is involved in the early Church epitaphs, "Refrigera
eum," "Eterna lux luceat ei," "Requiescat in pace," etc. And by
some it is supposed that Onesiphorus was dead when St. Paul
breathed his warm prayer for mercy upon him in the great day.
2 Tim. i. 16. This, however, cannot be regarded as absolutely certain.

THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME. 423

to treat this mysterious question in a spirit of reserve — a
spirit we shall do well to imitate.1 It has pleased the
Holy Ghost to reveal to us very little concerning the
state of the soul while absent from the body, and we
shall do best to respect this mysterious silence and refrain
from "darkening counsel by words without knowledge" —
from increasing the uncertainty in which it is shrouded — by
any unauthorized conjectures of our own.

On one point, however, we may venture reverently to
speculate. Is punishment hereafter entirely disciplinary,
or does our probation in every case come finally to an end
at death 1 The affirmative of the latter proposition has been
very confidently asserted; but when asked to support their
assertion from Holy Writ, those who maintain it are placed
in a position of some difficulty. They usually fall back
upon a single passage in Ecclesiastes, which they usually
misquote. "As the tree falls so it lies," is the supposed
Scriptural foundation on which, so far as the writer's
experience has gone, this most important and sweeping

1 It is not desirable to multiply quotations on this subject. It is
sufficient to refer to a few passages. OIUGEN, in his speculations in
De Principiis, Book II. ch. x., supposes that there are continual
ascents and descents in the scale of being, and that our present con
dition depends upon our conduct in a former one. He seems to regard
punishment as purgation, and rejection as the withdrawal of the
Divine Spirit from the human soul. It is extremely doubtful whether
he believed in the eventual salvation of the devil. AUGUSTINE, in his
Enchiridion ad Laurentium, c. 69, regards it as "not incredible"
that the faithful may attain to salvation after passing through a
purification of fire. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS, in his Orationes 33,
mentions judgment and retribution among the points on which
speculation was permitted. The earlier Fathers say very little about
the intermediate state ; but JUSTIN MARTYR distinctly, in his First
Apology, c. 8, and his Second Apology, c. 9, as well as in the Dialogue
with Trypho, c. 45, declares that there is such a tiling as eternal
punishment. The same view is expressed in the Ebionitish Recog
nitions and Homilies of Clement.

424

THE CREED.

conclusion has been usually imagined to rest.1 That the
period of death is one of tremendous awfulness and im
portance no reasonable person would be found to deny.
That it may be, and even that it often is, the end of
our term of probation, is an assertion which we have no
right summarily to dismiss. That St. Paul in 1 Cor. xv.
implies that life on earth leaves an indelible mark upon
our spiritual condition hereafter must unquestionably be
admitted. Nay, we are told that Christ's judgment will
be pronounced upon us for the deeds "done in the body."2
But all this does not entitle us to deny that there may be
those to whom an opportunity is given of retrieving the
errors committed here. Such a supposition, even though it
be but the faint breathing of a " larger hope," will be an
infinite relief to many who have been sorely perplexed
about the future of the heathen, or of those who have
passed their lives amid the seething mass of impurity
which festers in our large cities, or of those who, though
seemingly incapable of grappling with the evil habits which
have enslaved them while yet in the body, have yet
displayed from time to time not only a desire but a capacity
for better things ; or of those, once more, who through the
disputes and mistakes of theologians, or their own unfortunate
mental experience, have been unable while here to realize
the great facts on which all our future existence depends.
There is also no doubt a possibility that the expression of
such a hope may sometimes encourage the sinner in his sin. It

1 Dean Luckock has, it is true, attempted to grapple with the
question in his book on the Intermediate State. But when his
quotations are examined they amount to no more than this, that
there is a time when our probation is over ; whether before or after
death they do not say. Dr. Pusey, as his Life shows (especially
Vol. III.), was very strongly opposed to the idea of the possibility of
salvation after death.

2 2 Cor. v. 10.

THE LIFE OP THE WORLD TO COME. 425

is an old objection that the clemency of the ruler grants
impunity to the criminal. Yet does the English nation
enjoy less or more immunity from crime now that we have
adopted a gentler penal code? If mercy be held to beget
insolence, does not harshness often lead to despair? Do
we know how many instances of hardened and blaspheming
impenitence to the last have been due to the creed which
magnifies the severity of God to an extent which may involve
injustice, or how far those hard hearts might have been
softened by the proclamation of a doctrine which may seem
to fit in better with the undoubted truth that "God is
love"? At least we have no express declaration of God's
Word which forbids us to hope, even against hope. As long
as there remains in the human heart one spark of the
desire for better things,1 we may believe that He Who
"so loved the world that He sent His Only-begotten Son"
to redeem it will not quench that spark. If by persistent
and obstinate refusal to accept God's call the last breath
of all that can truly be called life is destroyed; if the
heart of the sinner be hardened into a final and deter
mined hatred of all that is good; then He Who is Love
has — we cannot escape the conclusion — no alternative but
to thrust the accursed thing from His presence, to banish
it to the "outer darkness, where is weeping and gnashing
of teeth," to plunge it into "the eternal fire prepared for
the devil and his angels," a punishment which we dare not
attempt too closely to define. There is, there can be, no
place for the sinner in heaven. If he remain a sinner, he
must remain "without." Yet we avert our eyes in awe
and trembling from so terrible, if yet so necessary, a vision
of judgment, and we pray God of His mercy to change our

1 It may be well to repeat here that Dr. Pusey, in his controversy
with Dean Farrar, expressed his belief that none would be doomed to
hell but those who obstinately and perseveringly refused the salvation
offered by God.

426 THE CREED.

hearts betimes that we may not have a part in that fearful
doom.

But to those who are privileged to "find mercy of the
Lord in that day " there will henceforth be nought but joy
and love. Wondrously beautiful are the pictures drawn for
us in Holy "Writ of the land where "all things are become
new."1 There "all tears" are wiped away. "Death shall
be no more : neither shall there be mourning, nor crying,
nor pain any more : the first things are passed away."
And this because the promised "new heavens and earth
are come, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 2 Righteousness
and love, for there can be no righteousness where there is
no love. JSTor can sorrow, and tears, and pain, nor death
itself, come to an end as long as evil continues to subsist.
For evil is the negation of love, the embodiment of the spirit
of self from which all sin and sorrow flows. Only those
in which the final crucifixion of self has been effected can
enter the abodes of the blessed ; and this is why the " Lamb
as though slain" shall ever be the centre of the heavenly
worship. "I have been crucified with Christ," "redeemed
and cleansed by His Blood," " saturated by His Spirit," will
be the theme of the continual choral hymn of praise which
in those sacred courts ascends to the Eternal Father, the
Giver of all good. Yet we need not imagine that nothing
but hymnody will be our occupation in that blessed home;
nor should we lay too much stress on the beautiful thought
expressed in Keble's Evening Hymn —

" Till in the ocean of Thy love,
"We lose ourselves in heaven above."

The idea reflects, perhaps, too strongly the contemplative
side of human aspirations. Our personality, we may believe,

1 Rev. xxi. 5. Of. 2 Cor. v. 17.

2 Isaiah Ixv. 17 ; 2 Peter iii. 13 ; Rev. xxi. 1.

THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME. 427

will not be absorbed in that life of ceaseless joy.1 If there
is but one will common to all the dwellers in the heavenly
Jerusalem, that will — the will to do good — will find its
highest realization in the interchange of loving offices, and
such interchange involves the retention by each of his
separate personality. Nor need the ceaseless offering of
praise preclude the possibility of a life of ceaseless activity.
The angels, who are represented as praising God unceasingly,
are also represented as the busiest of God's creatures. They
best praise God who do His Will, and that Will is Love.2
And thus, from this point of view, the never-ending anthem
which rises to the throne from the countless multitude of
the redeemed3 will be the perpetual discharge of tasks of
love in a spirit of gratitude for blessings received. That
blessed life will be at once a life of usefulness and a life
of progress. Eternity will be spent in exploring Infinity.
Throughout the ages there will ever be spread before us
fresh stores of God's wisdom and goodness.4 But the
vision of God in that eternal Home will no longer be
indirect, but immediate. It would appear that when the
time of restitution of all things has arrived, we shall no
longer, as in this life, and even as in Paradise, need to
approach God through the medium of His Incarnate Son,
but that we shall thenceforth "see Him as He is" in
Himself.5 The best preparation, then, for that future of

1 "Eternal form shall still divide

The eternal soul from all beside."

TENNYSON, In Memoriam, xlvi.

2 " He prayeth best who loveth best ,

All things both great and small ;
For the dear God "Who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."

COLERIDGE, Ancient Mariner.

3 Rev. iv. 11 ; vii. 10, 11 ; xix. 6.

4 "Then shall I know even as I am known " need not be explained
in a sense contradictory to this. It probably refers to that absolute
confidence in God's righteousness, mercy, and love, which is the basis
of all other knowledge. 5 See p. 249.

428 THE CREED.

unimaginable joy and glory is a life of loving service here.
It is the thoughtless, the unfeeling, the careless, the self-
seeking to whom the severest sentence is meted out by the
righteous Judge of all.1 But to those who use the gifts
committed to them for His honour and their neighbour's
profit are reserved the gracious words of commendation,
"Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Thou hast
been faithful over few things; I will make thee ruler over
many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."2

1 Matt, xxiv., xxv. 2 Matt. xxv. 23.

NOTE A, p. 149.— One of the most extraordinary facts in the
history of theology is the divergence of signification, in the East
and West respectively, of the words Hypostasis and Substance.
Properly they both mean the same thing, namely, that which lies
beneath. But in the East Hypostasis came to mean that under
lying distinction which separates an individual of one species
from another, or one species of a genus from others, or animal
life from vegetable life ; whereas in the West Substance came to
mean that common nature which belongs to all beings of the same
kind. Thus the Western word Substance came to mean the
same thing as the Greek of/via, or Essence (see p. 4), while the
Greek Hypostasis was used as an equivalent for the Latin Person.
Thus Origen (Gontr. Celsus, viii. 12) speaks of the Father and the
Son as two Hypostases — an expression which, if translated
literally into Latin or English (two substances), would mean
that the Father and the Son were not of the same Nature or
Essence. Athanasius, however (see Gieseler, Eccl. Hist., i. 344
sqq.), who had been in the West, and no doubt noted the use
of the word Substance in the Latin language, wished to accom
modate matters between those who recognized three Hypostases,
and those who only acknowledged one. But Basil, his brother
Gregory, and his friend Gregory of Nazianzus, stood up boldly,
and in the end successfully, for the three Hypostases, the first
defining ovala (or essence) as indicating what was common to
different individuals of the same kind, and Hypostasis (or Sub
stance) as that which indicated what was peculiar to each, while
the last, Gregory of Nazianzus (Orat., xxi.) explains Substance

NOTES. 429

as that which indicates the speciality (£5i6-rr;s) which distinguishes
one individual of a genus or species from another. Gregory
makes some severe remarks on the intellectual poverty of the
Latin language. But the point, in Syria at least, was not re
garded as settled by the time of Theodore of Mopsuestia, who
thought in Syriac, in the fifth century. (See Neander, iv. 118,
119, Bonn's translation.) The truth is that what was orthodox
in one language became heresy when translated into another ;
and this fact, combined with the frequent unfairness of the
proceedings, the violence and tumult, and what would in our
days be denominated the sharp practice too common in the
later Councils, accounts for the bitterness and long continuance
of the controversies. Thus, but for the healing influence of
Athanasius, Basil, and the Gregories, to translate the " three
Hypostases" of Basil and the Gregories into Latin would be
deadly heresy — nothing short, in fact, of Tritheism ; and the
same would be the result of teaching in Latin that there was
but one Substance in Christ. In later days controversy became
more virulent, and less care was taken to note the different
significations terms bore in various languages. Had the earlier
and more tolerant spirit survived, probably the great abilities
of Theodore of Mopsuestia would have been acknowledged and
more allowance made for the fact that Greek was not his native
language. These facts suggest a caution which is far from need
less, even in the twentieth century ; namely, that before theo
logians rush into controversy, it were well to define the meaning
of the words they employ, and, above all, when translating
from one language to another, to make sure that what they
have been accustomed to regard as an equivalent is really such.
It should be added, as an additional illustration of the danger
of dealing hastily with questions of this kind, that the word
substance, as now used in physical science, approaches very
closely to the definition quoted above from Gregory Nazianzus.
It should be stated that Hypostasis and Ousia are used as con
vertible terms in the anathema to the Nicene Creed. Basil
pleads for their use in a different sense in the words, " There is
the same difference between Hypostasis and Ousia as there is
between the common and the particular"

430 THE CREED.

NOTE B., p. 161. On the Kenosis.—Tke question of the Kcnosis
seems to have been a source of considerable confusion of thought
to the last, and perhaps to the present, generation. In the text
of this work I have made a reference (p. 164) to what I felt to
be such a confusion of thought on the part of my revered friend
Canon Bright, and to the interesting correspondence which took
place between us about it. I have since come to the conclusion
that, in spite of some expressions of his which I have quoted
(p. 161, note 1), Canon Hatchings falls into a similar confusion
of thought, against which, curious to relate, Canon Bright him
self, as appears from a passage a few lines above, in the same
note, has desired to guard himself. God the Son, we may be
sure, "laid aside" nothing when He became man. He could
not, as God, " lay aside " the " exercise " of any of the powers
which He possessed, for they were essential to His Godhead. He
could not " lay aside the visible expression " of any such powers,
because He had never given them — possibly never could have
given them— full visible expression during His life here below.
In fact no " visible expression " of the powers that belonged to
God could have taken place, consistently with His plan for the
regeneration of the world, save in the shape of occasional
signs and wonders, and such signs and wonders were occasion
ally displayed by the Man Christ Jesus. That He did not
express the whole Majesty of the Godhead in and through the
Manhood is quite true. That the Manhood in many ways con
cealed rather than revealed the Powers of the Godhead is also
true. But that arose from the nature of the case. Even heathen
mythologists have seen that were the Father of gods and men
fully to reveal His glory, it would be fatal to our weak humanity.
God revealed Himself through the Manhood just because, as
man is constituted, a fuller revelation of His Majesty to man than
that which He could make through man would have been im
possible. He took human shape just because it was only by
such a mode of self-revelation that man could apprehend His
Nature. In the Incarnation He put Himself on our level, that
we might at least rise to a comprehension of God sufficient to
bring our wills into union with His.

The translation of eavrw tKtvuaev by " emptied Himself " is a
similar instance of confusion of thought. Modern Oxford seems
to imagine that in the Incarnation of Christ the Godhead was

NOTES. 431

taken into the Manhood, and had, at least for a time, to part with
a good deal of Itself in the process. Catholic theology has com
mitted itself to the converse proposition. It is difficult to prove a
negative. But if the theory which was put forth in the last few
years of the nineteenth century were anticipated at any previous
time, it is in the by-ways and not in the highways of theology
that it is to be looked for. Heretics as well as Catholics, in early
times, contended for the unchangeableness of the Godhead (see
p. 163). And that the Godhead was, not " emptied " by, but
united in Hypostatic Union with, the Manhood was the doctrine
universally received by members of the Catholic Church in past
ages. The verb Kevttw, in every other place in which it is found
in the New Testament, means, not emptying in the objective
sense, but involves the subjective idea of human opinion. KTJ^S,
it is true, means empty in the Gospels (see Mark xii. 3 ; Luke i.
53, xx. 10, 11). No question of subjective impressions is intro
duced here. The persons mentioned are objectively deprived
of what they before possessed. But in Acts iv. 25 ; 1 Cor. xv. 10,
14, 58 ; Eph. v. 6 (i.e. unconvincing words — empty words, i.e.
words without meaning, could not deceive) ; Col. ii. 8 ; 1 Thess.
ii. 1 ; James ii. 20, the word clearly brings in the factor of human
opinion. It is translated vain, and always with the idea of
without force or influence, efe Kevt>v (2 Cor. vi. 1 ; Gal. ii. 2 ; Phil,
ii. 16 ; 1 Thess. iii. 5) invariably means to no purpose, void of
effect (on other people's minds). The verb /cev6w always has the
same sense. In Rom. iv. 14, St. Paul argues that if people
under the law are heirs, faith has become of no use (/ce/c^wrai),
and the promise without effect (/car^^rai). In 1 Cor. i. 17,
the preaching of the Gospel, if in a spirit of worldly wisdom,
makes the Cross of Christ of no use to us. In ix. 15
St. Paul's boasting will be without result, if it can be said that
he accepted payment for his services. See also 2 Cor. ix. 3.
Therefore, in Phil. ii. 7 — the only other place where the word
occurs — the meaning must be that, during the time that
Jesus lived among us as one of ourselves, all the Majesty
of the Godhead was not, and could not be, displayed, but
remained, as it were, behind a veil ; so that, to all human
appearance, He was as other men are, save when, on fitting
occasions, His Divine Power as Healer or Teacher made itself

432 THE CREED.

manifest. The Divine Power remained where it was and as
it was, in His Personality. But it was revealed only very
partially and imperfectly in His intercourse with His fellow-
men. Thus there is not the slightest hint in the passage
we are discussing that the Essence of the Godhead of the
Divine Son underwent any change or modification whatsoever
during the period in which Christ lived as Man among men.
The only fair explanation of St. Paul's language is that all the
glory and greatness of the Godhead did not, and could not,
manifest itself through the Manhood. In other words (see
p. 164), the true explanation of the Mystery of Christ's manifest
ation of Himself in the Flesh and of His "growth in wisdom,"
His ignorance as Man of what was known to Him as God, His
agony in the garden, the horror of great darkness which seized
on Him on the Cross, is that the Manhood was unable to assimi
late, and a fortiori to manifest to others, all the inconceivable
and incommunicable perfections of the Godhead. I may
perhaps be permitted to lament the fact that, during the last
quarter of a century, theological progress has been held to
consist, not in building up steadily, slowly, and surely on the
foundations of the past, but in digging up those foundations
and substituting others for them. And I would also lament
a remarkable feature of the modern theological treatise, namely,
that, as a rule, no authorities are quoted in it as authorities,
save those who have attained notoriety during the last thirty,
or perhaps forty, years.

INDEX

I.— SUBJECTS

Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), Council at, 255.

Absolution, nature of, 366.

Agnostic theories of God, 51, 52.

Agnosticism, meaning of, 52 ; partly owing to rash religious dogma

tism, 44 ; Christian, 53.

Alexandria and Constantinople, mutual jealousies of, 150.
Alexandrian School of Theology, tinged with Platonism, 50.
Altruism, the true guide of conduct, 61.
Annihilation, 416.
Anomoeans, the, 53.
Apostoliccc sedcs, 294.
Apollinarian heresy, 149.
Aquileia, Creed of, 7.
Arian controversy, 125-130.
Ariminum, Council at, 218.
Atheist, prayer of an, 73.

Atonement, the same as reconciliation, 206, 208 ; philosophy of, 211.
Auricular Confession, 365, 370.
Authority, not to be confounded with infallibility, 387 ; deference to,

395, 396.

Baptism, its place in the economy of salvation, 168-171 ; necessity
of, 302 ; the rite of initiation into the Christian Church, 304, 379 ;
grafts into Christ, 305 ; grace of, needs conscious acceptance on our
part, 309 ; significance of promises made at, 310 ; Infant, 311 ;
early practice of, 315.

Begotten, of God the Son, meaning of, 130.

Benedict VIII., 257.

Berengarius, 395.

Bible, assumes, explains, and applies the Christian Creed, 32-34.

Biblical criticism, 84.

Bishops, transmission of the powers of, 349-356 ; originally elected
by their flocks, 362.

Body, changes in our material, 409 ; the spiritual, 409, 410. See
also Resurrection of Christ, 227.

Bonn Conference, 257.

Buddhism, 125 j Esoteric, 71.

Cabrera, Bishop, 293.

2 F 433

434 THE CREED.

Canons, obligation of, 400 ; Non-user, 401.

Catholic, originally opposed to heretic, 289 ; opposed (wrongly) to
Protestant, 290 ; meaning of the word, 290 ; Customs, 400.

Catholicism, Constitutional, 404.

Cerularius, Michael, 257.

Chalcedon, Council of, 3, 153, 280, 384.

Charles the Great (Charlemagne), 8, 255.

Christ, meaning of the word, 117 ; belief in His Divinity not a later
development, 136 ; our Representative, 203 ; His Sacrifice, 200-208 ;
effects of His death, 214-218 ; His descent into hell, 218 ; His
preaching to the spirits in prison, 221 ; pleaded in heaven and
earth, 241 ; His future judgment, 244 ; His kingdom has no end,
250 ; Life of, source of our salvation, 141.

Christianity, leading idea of, 13, 143 ; a supernatural religion, 138 ;
its centre of gravity gradually shifted, 143.

Church, meaning of the word, 280 ; Christ's visible kingdom, 281 ;
Christ's Life dwells in the, 282 ; One, 284 ; Holy, 287 ; Catholic,
288 ; Apostolic, 289; has no power to make new dogmas, 291; a
visible society, 296 ; the invisible, ib. ; collegiate government of,
351 ; rules of, not rigidly defined at the outset, 358 ; powers of
ministers in, 361 ; what constitutes membership of, 379 ; authority
of, 380 ; its limits, 388.

Clergy, always existed in the Christian Church, 347 ; originally
elected by their flocks, 363.

Communicatio idiomatum, 151.

Communion of Saints, the, 286.

Conception of the B.V.M. , immaculate, 139.

Confession, value of, 369.

Confirmation, 315.

Conscience, testifies to God's existence, 59, 71 ; not the experience of
the tribe, 61.

Constance, Council of, 386, 391.

Constantine, 127, 128, 384.

Constantinople, First Council of, 3, 129, 390, 391 ; Second Council
of, 257, 394.

Constantius, 128.

Consubstantiation, 322.

Copts, the, 154.

Cravings of humanity, how satisfied, 71-74.

Creation, work of, 108 ; successive periods of, 110.

Creationism, 186.

Creed, Nicene, 3 ; when drawn up, 3-6 ; its original and ultimate
form, 4, 5 ; Apostles', its origin and growth, 7 ; Athauasian,
authorship of, 7, 8 ; damnatory clauses, their meaning, 9-11 ; public
recitation of the, 12.

Creeds, importance of, 1, 289 ; expansions of baptismal formula, 1 ;
acceptance of necessary for admission into the Christian Church,
29 ; number of drawn up during the Arian controversy, 128.

Customs, ecclesiastical, not always uniform, 403.

Damascus, John of, 258.

INDEX. 435

De fide, what must be considered, 388.

Deists, English, their conceptions of God, 51.

Design, argument from, 55.

Docetism, 124.

Doctrines, distinction between fundamental and secondary, 34, 35, 38.

Dogma, definition of, 38.

Dollinger, Dr. I. von, his labours for Reunion, 260.

East, resentment of the, against the Papal policy, 386.

Ecclesia docens and discens, 300.

Egoism, meaning of, 61.

Elders, 345.

Election, 179.

Ephesus, Council of, 151.

Epicureanism, 44, 47.

Eschatology, 411-428.

Essence and Substance, 4, 127, 428, 429.

Eternal punishment, 412-115.

Eternity, blessings of, 426.

Eucharist, 316 ; function of, 317 ; views entertained on, 319 ; general
agreement on the main purpose of, 320 ; spiritual presence in, 323 ;
regarded as a feeding on the Body of Christ as at the moment of
death, ib. ; unites us to Christ in His whole redemptive work, 324 ;
in what sense a sacrifice, 328 ; carnal conceptions of, 327, 334 ;
in what sense necessary to salvation, 330 ; worthy reception of, ib. ;
Tractarian view of, 332 ; opinions of the Fathers upon, 335-344.

Eutychianism, 154.

Evil, existence of, disturbs our conceptions of God, 64 ; why per
mitted, 66-68, 190.

Evolution in relation to creation, 111 ; to the Incarnation, 148.

Excommunicated, treatment of, 297.

Excommunication, original meaning of, 126 ; when valid, 366-368.

Faith, the necessary condition for our reception of the new life, 15,
308, 314 ; source of Christian obedience and progress, 16 ; under
the old covenant, ib.; St. Paul described as the Apostle of, ib. ;
stress laid by the New Testament on, 17, 18 ; definition of, 20, 21 ;
various meanings of the word, ib. ; distinguished from knowledge,
21 ; opposed, not to reason, but to sight, 21-24 ; involves trust,
23 ; the Catholic, summary of, 38, 40 ; dors not rest on reason
alone, 74.

Fall, the, an obvious fact, 183 ; not the result of eating an apple, ib.

Father, the source of all that is, 102, 255.

Fathers, unanimous consent of, 291, 389 ; Ultramontane tampering
with, 338, 341, 385.

Fatherhood of God, 103 ; revealed in its fulness by Christ, ib.

Filioquc controversy, 253-261.

Force, the expression of Will, 56.

Forgiveness, made the principal object of Christ's coming, 145, 198.

Frankfort, Council of, 258, 294.

Freedom of inquiry in religion, 397.

436 THE CREED.

Gehenna, 220.

Generation, distinction of from Procession, 130.

German criticism, merits and defects of, 138.

Gerson, 391.

Ghost, Holy (see Spirit, Holy).

Gnosticism, 124, 126 ; Christian, 44.

God, belief in, antecedent to religion, 41 ; idea of, all but universal,
42 ; innate, 45 ; exceptions considered, 43 ; rash utterances about,
43, 44 ; false conceptions of, crept early into the Christian Church,
44 ; Roman conception of, ib. ; not a mere abstraction, 45 ; mani
fest in phenomena as a Force, 45, 46 ; scientific discovery modifies
our views of, 46 ; primitive conceptions of, ib, ; philosophic ideas
of, 46, 47 ; Law of Moses reveals Him as righteous, 49 ; as the
Fountain of Life, ib. ; conception of by Latin theologians, 50 ; by
English deists, 51 ; by German metaphysicians, ib. ; by Agnostics,
51, 52; neither the Infinite, the Absolute, nor the Unconditioned,
52 ; unknowable in His essential Nature, 53 ; His moral govern
ment, 58, 65, 106, 107 ; revelation of, to the patriarchs, 81 ; to
Moses, 82 ; to the prophets, 84 ; in Christ, 86 ; unity of, 99-102 ;
the Preserver of all things, 109 ; result of immoral conceptions of,
421.

Good works, organic, 145 ; decried, 198.

Grace, change of meaning in the word, 142 j often substituted for the
Divine Indwelling, 270.

Gregory VII. , 385.

Grosseteste, Robert, 385.

Hades, 219, 220, 414.

Hadrian I., 256.

Heathen countries, their condition as compared with Christian, 188.

Heresy, definition of, 292.

Heresies, early, due to the originality of Christianity, 50.

Hildebrand, 385.

Homoiousion, 128.

Homobusion, 127, 128, 129, 390.

Honorius, 155.

Hope, "the larger," 424.

Huss, John, 395.

Hypostasis, 428.

Hypostatic union, 149.

Ideal and actual state of believers, 285, 287.

Identity, personal, in what it consists, 409.

Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople, 257.

Immanence of God in us, 146.

Immortality, conditional, 428 ; of the soul, not taught in Scripture,

411, 418.
Imputation, Luther's original conception of, derived from scholastic

theology, 171.

Infinite punishment for sin, considered as an infinite offence, 195,
Incarnation, mode of, 148, 157 ; effects of 180, 181,

INDEX. 437

Innocence and perfection, often confounded, 184.

Innocent III., 385.

Innocent IV., ib.

Intellect, not the chief seat of religious conviction, 74.

Intention, doctrine of, 374.

Intermediate state, 220, 418 ; speculations on, 423.

Jacobites, 154.

Jerome of Prague, 395.

Jesus, meaning of the name, 115.

Jesus Christ, satisfies the cravings of humanity, 72; truly and properly
God, 93, 95, 97; the revelation of the Father, 113; Lord of all,
114; His anointing as Prophet, Priest, and King, 118; an historical
personage, 119; His history a supernatural one, 120; existed before
the worlds, 121-123 ; made the worlds, 135 ; came to restore and
exalt mankind, 141, 143 ; His birth miraculous, 147 ; Perfect Man,
158 ; Perfect God, 92, 93, 97, 127, 129.

John, King of England, 385.

Joshua, a type of Christ, 116 ; Joshua (or Jeshua) the High Priest,
a type of Christ, ib.

Judgment, a future, necessary for the vindication of God's dealings
with us, 244 ; teaching of Scripture concerning, 245.

Justification, 166, 173-179, 208-210.

Kenosis, the, 161-165, 429-432.

Knowledge, imperfect, 23 ; partial, not equivalent to none at all, 23,
54 ; relation of phenomena to, 56.

Laity, rights of the Christian, 391, 401.

Laodicea, Council at, 394, 401.

Lateran Council (Fourth), 322, 394.

Latin and Greek theology compared, 50.

Latrocinium, 152, 153.

Liberius, 155.

Love, St. John supposed to be the apostle of, 16, 17.

Lucerne, Reunion Congress at, 258, 388.

Luke, St., trustworthiness of, 147.

Macedonius, heresy of, 279.

Mass, 316.

Mediation, true meaning of the word, 144 ; Christ's, true nature

of, 199.

Mediatorial office of Christ, whether ultimately laid aside, 165, 251, 127.
Melchizedek, 82.
Mercy-seat, 205.
Messiah, 117.
Mexico, Episcopal Reformed Church in, 403 ; Brazil, Cuba, and the

Philippines, ib.

Miracles, revelation made by, 74 ; credibility of, 111.
Monophysites, 154, 390.
Monotheism, probably the earliest creed, 47.

438 THE CREED.

Monotheletism, 154, 155.

Moral emotions, our, presuppose an object, 69.

Mysteries, often rashly explained, 197.

National Churches, the true expression of Church life, 403.
Nature, order of, not invariable, 117.
Nestorianism, 153.

Nicaea, First Council at, 3, 127, 391.
Nicaea, Second Council at, 291.
Nice, 218.
Nicolausl., 256.
Nominalist controversy, 325.

Nonconformists, "orthodox," hold the Catholic faith, 295 ; how far
separated from the Church, 374 ; powers of the laity among, 402.

Objective, meaning of the word, 335.

Oecumenical Councils, authority of, 35, 127, 152-156, 390-394 ; their
number, 153, 381 ; first four stand apart from the rest, 393 ; their
decisions, whether final, 396, 397 ; their authority on points of
discipline, 399.

Old Catholics, 38, 258, 294, 387, 402, 403.

Optimist view of nature, 57.

Paraclete, meaning of the word, 273.

Paradise, 220, 422.

Patripassianism, 125.

IIe/3txw/377<rts, 101.

Persecution, Nonconformists as well as Churchmen guilty of, 378.

Person, different senses of the word, 87, 88.

Pessimism, 57, 59.

Peter, genuineness of his Second Epistle, 137.

Pe trine, Pauline, and Johannine theology, no distinction between, 16,

17, 134.

Philosophy, heathen, unable to grasp the Incarnation, 124.
Photinianism, 151.
Photius, 258.
Platonism, 44.
Popes, authority and infallibility of, 382, 385 ; condemned for heresy,

154 ; conflicting utterances of, on theFilioque controversy, 257-259.
Portugal, episcopal reformed bodies in, 403.
Prayers for the Dead, 420.
Predestination, 179.
Presbyterian bodies, position of, 372.
Probation, 423, 424.
Procession, Greek and Latin equivalents of the word, 253 ; double

(see Filioque).
Prophecy, witness of, to Christ, 76 ; function of, in the Divine

economy, 262, 268.
Prophets and teachers, ultimately settle down into presbyters and

deacons, 360.

INDEX. 439

Propitiation, Origen's theory of, 190 ; Anselm's, 191 ; question

discussed, 194-208.

Protestant Churches on the Continent, 293.
Psychical, meaning of the word, 147, 160 ; body, the, 228, 407.
Punishment, whether remedial, deterrent, or vindictive, 202 ; future,

organic, 417.
Purgatory, 418.

Realist controversy, 326.

Reason, not opposed to faith, 22 ; to be exercised on the truths

revealed to faith, 23, 27.
Reccared, King, 256.
Redemption, 200, 201.

Reformation, influence of on Christian doctrine, 143.
Regeneration, 169 ; an instantaneous process, 170 ; baptismal, 313.
Religious ideas, presuppose an object, 70.
Remission (&(pe<n$) of sins, meaning of, 307.
Resurrection of Christ the foundation of the Christian faith, 76 ; His

Resurrection Body, 227-229 ; the general, 407.
Revelation, became necessary in consequence of the Fall, 26 ; made by

means of miracles, 74 ; man's need of a, 73.
Righteousness, imparted as well as imputed, 145.
Riley, Bishop, 403.
Roman additions to the faith, 291.
Rome, Church of, her probable future, 405.
Rotterdam, Congress at, 258.
Rule of faith, necessity of a, 2, 31, 32.

Sacraments, their relation to Christ's work, 243 ; the seven, 301 ; two
principal ones, ib. ; grace of God not tied to, 170, 314.

Sanctification, 269.

Satisfaction, true nature of Christ's, 207, 208.

Schism, guilt of, to whom attributable, 376.

Scripture, authority of, 294.

Semi-Arianism, 128.

Sheol, 219.

Sight, opposed to faith, 21.

Sin, original, whether privatio boni, 185 ; transmission of, 185-187 ;
results of, 188-189 ; remedy for, decreed before the world began,
190 ; a step in the moral development of man, 189.

Sirmium, Council at, 128, 218 ; dated Creed of, 128.

Son, the, whether the Father can annihilate Him, 126 ; generation of,
130 ; His relation to the Father, 132-134.

Speculation, freedom of, 389.

Spain, Episcopal Reformed bodies in, 403.

Spirit, the Holy, truly and properly God, 94, 93 ; not sent till Jesus
ascended, 242 ; His relation to the other Persons of the Trinity,
252-261; His office and work, 261-275; is the medium through
Whom we receive the Life of Christ, 270 ; through Him we have
access to the Father, 271 ; reveals Divine mysteries to us, 272 ;
guides the Church into all the truth, 275, 276.

440 THE CREED.

Stoic philosophy, 47, 48.

Subjective conceptions, faith in, taking the place of faith in objective

realities, 144. See also Objective.
Substance, 427, 428. See also Essence.
Substitution, theory of, 192 ; discussed, 193, 194.
Supererogation, works of, 143.
Supernatural, restraining force of a belief in the, 72 ; definition of the

word, 75.
Symbolum, 3.

Teachers of religion, their duties and responsibilities, 398.
Terminology, religious, change of meaning in, 116, 142, 144, 166, 239.
Testament, Old, interpretation of, 81-84 ; New, when written and by

whom, 136.
Theophanies, the, 90.
Theotokos, 150.

Threefold order of ministers, 359, 360.
Tractarianism, 145.
Tradition, nature and value of, 291.
Traducianism, 186.

Transference of merits and demerits, theory of, 178.
Transubstantiation, definition of, 322 ; origin of the doctrine, 325 ;

the term may be admitted if carefully and properly explained,

325-327.

Trent, Council of, 386, 387, 394.
Trinity, doctrine of, 86-99 ; not revealed to the Jews, 89 ; baptismal

formula and Apostolic benediction involve the, 92 ; function of each

Person in, 278.

"Undenominational" teaching not recognized by the Church, 12.
Unknowableness of phenomena, 53 ; of God, ib.
Universe, Divine plan in the government of, 59.

Vatican Council, 153, 386, 394.
Vicarious suffering, 212, 213.
Vigilius, 155.

Vincentian Canon, 34, 290, 292, 381.
Vulgate, effect of renderings in the, 142.

Word, the Divine, the Image and Impress of God, 122, 123 ; His
unchangeableness, 163 ; our spiritual life derived from Him, 167.

Zonaras, 401.

Aeschylus, 61.
Aristotle, 57.
Cicero, 48.

II.— AUTHORS QUOTED
BEFORE CHRIST.

Lucretius, 61.

Ovid, 61.

Plato, 48, 50, 124.

INDEX.

A.D. FIRST CENTURY.

441

Clement of Rome, 45, 353, 363,

402. [360.

Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles,

Suetonius, 119.
Tacitus, 119.

SECOND CENTURY.

Athenagoras, 328.

Basilides, 52.

Clement of Alexandria, 141, 222,

297, 337, 342, 353.
Clementines, 72, 303, 423.
Hermas, 222.
Ignatius of Antioch, 2, 30, 93,

336, 359.

Irenaeus, 2, 30, 93, 141, 191, 194,
202, 218, 230, 309, 323, 328,
337, 352, 353, 355, 364, 384.

Justin Martyr, 72, 93, 220, 310,
315, 336, 423.

Polycarp, 353.

Tertullian, 3, 30, 32, 63, 93, 142,
218, 250, 303, 310, 338, 353,
355, 364.

THIRD CENTURY.

Apostolical Constitutions and
Canons, 218, 303, 310, 349,
365.

Cyprian, 218, 297, 309, 338, 350.

Dionysius of Alexandria, 303.

Firmilian, 353.

Gregory the Illuminator, 342.
Hippolytus, 52, 297, 303.
Origen, 54, 141, 149, 164, 165,

191, 218, 338, 423.
Sabellius, 7, 88, 125.

FOURTH CENTURY.

Ambrose, 353, 363.

Apollinaris, 149.

Arius, 125, 126.

Athanasius, 26, 45, 50, 53, 100,
125, 126, 128, 129, 136, 141,
163, 207, 230, 339, 342, 363.

Basil, 54, 95, 102, 141, 339.

Cyril of Jerusalem, 6, 102, 339.

Ephrem Syrus, 343.

Eusebius, 6, 218, 350, 352.
Gregory of Nazianzus, 53, 102,

191, 389, 423.
Gregory of Nyssa, 96, 417.
Hilary of Poitiers, 102, 222.
Marcellus of Ancyra, 7.
Theodore of Mopsuestia, 149, 152,

417,

FIFTH CENTURY.

Augistine, 37, 102, 121, 130,
135, 141, 185, 340, 353, 403,
423.

Chrysostom, 103, 222, 341, 343,
353.

Cyril of Alexandria, 102, 151, 353.

Epiphanius, 7.

Hilary of Aries, 8.

Honoratus, 9,

Jerome, 329, 343, 353.

Nestorius, 149, 151.

Paulinus, 363.

Ruffinus, 7, 103.

Socrates, 128, 150, 151, 163, 218.

Theodoret, 103, 142, 151, 163,

341, 353, 363.
Vincentius of Lerins, 32, 291,

442

THE CREED.

SIXTH CENTURY.

Venantius Fortunatus, 7. | Yigilius, 102.

EIGHTH CENTURY.

Elipandus, 8.
Felix of Urgellis, 8.
John of Damascus, 102.

Paulinus, Bishop, 8.
Pirminius, 8.

Abelard, 191.
Anselm, 191-, 353.

TWELFTH CENTURY.

Bernard, 202.

THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
Aquinas, Thomas, 243, 314, 353. | Scotus, John Dans, 353.

SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

Augsburg Confession, 323.

Hooker, Richard, 44, 89, 135,
146, 149, 243, 317, 320, 321,
327, 328, 334, 376, 380, 394.

Jewel, Bishop, 406.
Saxon Confession, 323.

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

Andrewes, Bishop, 343.

Bacon, Lord, 55.

Barrow, Dr. Isaac, 172, 386, 406.

Bull, Bishop, 101, 172, 176.

Hall, Bishop, 406.

Hammond, 91, 172.

Jackson, Dean, 195.

Laud, Archbishop, 386, 406.

Lightfoot, Dr., 219, 363.

Morinus, 353, 357.

Pearson, Bishop, 24, 37, 42, 78,
92, 121, 146, 149, 218, 222,
235, 236, 244, 246, 248, 257,
269, 280, 281, 307.

Spinoza, 51.

Taylor, Bishop Jeremy, 10, 406.

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

Bingham, 315, 365.

Butler, Bishop, 58, 59, 144, 197,

246.

Clarke, Dr., 126.
Doddridge, Dr., 319.
Hawarden, Dr., 126.

Kant, 51.

King, Archbishop, 9.
Law, Dr. William, 207.
Paley, Archdeacon, 56.
Wall, 316.
Waterland, Dr., 8.

NINETEENTH CENTURY.

Allen, Rev. A. J. C., 316.
Aliiu, Rev. T., 416.
Armagh. Archbishop of (Dr.
Alexander), 211, 212.

Arnold, Matthew, 44.

Barnum, 419.

Baxter, 268.

Benson, Rev. Father, 327.

INDKX.

443

Blunt, Professor, 139.

Bonney, Professor, 79, 187, 213,

262, 278.
Brace, 74.

Bradlaugh, Mr. Charles, 43.
Bright, Professor, 13, 146, 161,

163, 270.

Brinckman, Rev. A., 406.
Browne, Bishop Harold, 328, 365.
Bruce, Professor A. B., 61.
Burbidge, Rev. E., 2, 9.
Burkitt, Mr. F. C., 382.
Burn, Rev. A. E., 9.
Campbell, Dr. McLeod, 207.
Church, Dean, 389.
Church Quarterly Review, 26, 351.
Clifford, Professor, 60, 63.
Coleridge, 34, 427.
Contemporary Review, 417.
Cox, Dr., 412.
Dale, Dr. R. W., 91.
Denton, Rev. W., 382.
Dollinger, 366, 379, 421.
Dorner, 88, 126, 149, 150, 157.
Ellicott, Bishop, 79.
Farrar, Dean, 412, 413, 425.
Flint, Professor, 79.
Freeman, Archdeacon, 343.
Froude, Professor, 171.
Gibson, Dr., 101, 259.
Gieseler, 95.
Gilbert, Canon, 345.
Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., 374.
Godet, 75, 175, 226.
Goodwin, Bishop Harvey, 1, 12,

29, 34, 54, 117, 120, 147, 182,

190, 249, 316.
Gore, Canon, 34, 35, 72, 150, 161,

283, 291, 344, 355, 373, 393, 406.
Griffith, Mr. W., 42.
Gwatkin, Professor, 126.
Hagenbach, 187.
Hallam, 370, 378.
Hammond, 91.
Hare, Archdeacon, 389.
Harnack, Professor, 13, 126, 137.
Harvey, Rev. W. W., 9.
Hatch, Dr., 345.
Heard, Rev. J. B., 24, 46, 55,

65, 201, 405, 414, 416, 417,

Hegel, 52.

Hinton, 68.

Hort, Professor, 3, 6, 129.

Hutchings, Canon, 161.

Huxley, Professor, 72, 111.

Illingworth, Dr., 88.

Keble, 426.

Kidd, Dr., 2, 186.

Kireeff, General, 392.

Langen, Professor, 351.

Liddon, Canon, 20, 97, 98, 113,

157.

Lightfoot, Bishop, 163, 351.
Littledale, Dr., 65, 366, 384, 386,

406.

Loyson, M. Hyacinthe, 404.
Luckock, Dean, 424.
Lumby, Professor, 2, 9.
Maclear, Dr., 227.
Magee, Archbishop, 395.
Mahan, Dr., 406.
Manning, Cardinal, 379.
Hansel, Dean, 88.
Martineau, Dr., 22, 44, 46, 47,

56 57, 59, 60, 61, 68, 176.
Mason, Professor, 190.
Maurice, Professor F. D., 145,

412.

Mayor, Professor J. B., 20.
Michaud, Professor, 38.
Mill, James, 60, 61, 63.
Mill, John Stuart, 56.
Milligan, Professor, 145, 198, 205,

224, 228, 229, 230, 232, 238,

239, 242.

Milman, Dean, 385.
Moberly, Bishop, 391, 401, 402.
Momerie, Professor, 79.
Morison, Mr. Cotter, 176.
Moule, Dr. H. G. C., 161.
Mozley, Professor, 75.
Miiller, 187.

Miiller, Professor Max, 46.
Neauder, 72, 88, 96, 126, 149,

150, 151, 417.
Newman, Cardinal, 327.
Norris, Archdeacon, 45, 63, 74,

176, 191, 196, 200, 217, 344,

377.

Palmer, Sir W., 386, 406.
Plumptre, Dean, 82, 222.

444

THE CREED.

Perry, Canon, 385.
Proby, Rev. W. H. B., 314.
Puller, Rev. Father, 406.
Pusey, Dr., 308, 343, 381, 406,

424, 425.

Reusch, Professor, 366.
Revue Internationale, 37.
Robertson, F. W., 170.
Rothe, 68.
Sadler, Prebendary, 91, 137, 182,

316.

Salmon, Provost, 136, 386.
Sanday, Professor, 20.
Schopenhauer, 58.
Simeon, Rev. 0., 198.
Spencer, Herbert, 56, 71.

Stanley, Dean, 10, 39, 126.
Stokes, Sir G. G., 87, 110.
Strong, Rev. J. B., 352.
Swete, Professor, 2, 9, 30, 157.
Swetloff, Professor, 37.
Tennyson, Lord, 58, 68, 222, 247,

416.

Yogan, Dr., 342.
Ward, Wilfrid, 72.
Wellington, Duke of, 189. .
Westcott, Bishop, 21, 40, 91, 105,

136, 182, 194, 203, 205, 206,

212, 213, 215, 238, 305.
Wordsworth, Bishop Christopher,

406.
Zahn, 137.

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